


Can't Seem to Get Rid of You...

by DeanWinchesterIsTrans



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2018-12-12 06:04:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11731011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeanWinchesterIsTrans/pseuds/DeanWinchesterIsTrans
Summary: The Eleventh Doctor thought he wouldn't ever see the Master again. He never wanted to see him again. He should know better by now.





	1. The Time of Angels

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a mess of an AU of a bunch of episodes, so please bear with me here.

The Clerics Angelo and Christian made their way down the chamber. They had been sent by the Bishop, Father Octavian, while the Father did more setup work in the center of the catacombs. As they were rounding a corner, they spotted what appeared to be a man trapped under some rocks, possibly one of the crew members, probably a corpse. Their suspicions of his death were proven wrong by a wheezing cough stirring the dust.

"Hello?" a hoarse voice rung out.

"Doctor Song, you may want to come see this! It's urgent!" called Christian using his radio.

The weak voice continued, "I was trying to make my way out of the damn ship, but some metal hallway was twisted in the crash. The artificial gravity screwed up, and I fell down here. The falling bits of ship knocked over some rubble, stuck my leg underneath it. It'd be lovely if you could help get me out of here."

"Are you a member of the crew?" Angelo questioned, suspicious.

"Something like that."

They heard River Song's approaching footsteps before they saw her. Upon sight of the only known survivor other than the Angel, she tensed up slightly, but put on a smile to counter the sign of fear. "Ah. I can handle this. You boys go on and check down there. See if there are any more survivors." She knew there wouldn't be any. After they left, she turned to the trapped man. Coldly, she said, "You know, I seriously considered starting bets on who would take the Byzantium down first: the Angel, or you, the crazed ex-Prime Minister thirty centuries out of his time. Love the beard, by the way. Didn't expect you to survive the crash."

"Yeah, me neither. It must either be my lucky day, or your unlucky one. I know which I'd pick if I were you."

Not having any of his nonsense, River calmly asked, "Why shouldn't I just leave you here for the Angels, Mr. Saxon?"

"I promise I will come back, and I promise I will come back angry," he threatened. At her unimpressed look, he rolled his eyes and added, "Count the hearts."

His words had his desired effect. She scanned his chest with her handheld device and her eyes widened in, fear, possibly. Or was that recognition? Either way, she rushed back off to main command. Personally, he was hoping he had stumbled across a group of kind, law abiding citizens against capital punishment and vigilantism. Though, judging by the military fatigues, he may be a bit out of luck.

Despite the tempting concept, he was trying really desperately to avoid a regeneration. The fall had done a bit more than just trap his leg, he was fairly certain there was some internal damage which was about to become very irritating. As for the regeneration, a new face might be welcome with the whole ex-Prime Minister thing becoming very annoying very rapidly, but he did not want to release a bunch of artron energy for a Weeping Angel to pick up. The energy inside a TARDIS could blow out the sun if taken by an Angel, he knew that. However, he didn't know what would happen if they were to feast on a newly regenerated Time Lord, and he really did not want to find out.

River Song soon returned, dragging a gangly man in a bow tie behind her. The man complained about needing to return to searching for the Angel, and "ow! River, stop pulling my arm," until he saw the man River was bringing him to see. He froze, then said with a voice so full of malice, the Master nearly mistook him for some regeneration of Rassilon, "You."

He coughed, trying to shift the rocks away from his leg again. "Have we met?"

"He says he's a Time Lord--" River began.

"Leave him to die," the man demanded, staring at River, voice full of fire and hate and ice and bitter resolve.

"Stars, who are you, and what the hell did I do?" the Master complained. It really was not his day.

"Doctor?" a woman called, walking down the cavern corridor towards them, footsteps echoing.

Oh. The Doctor. The Master's face paled. He really must have pushed it too far these last few times. Pushed the Doctor to the point where he didn't want to play their game anymore. He knew he had gone too far with all that happened in the Year That Never Was, but he had been mad with the silence from the fall of Gallifrey, the loss of his home. He was willing to make amends now, but clearly something had broken. "Doctor?" he whispered, barely making a sound.

"I said, leave him to die!" this new, cold Doctor ordered, not daring to look the condemned man in the eyes. "Amy, let's go."

The redhead-- Amy-- gave the new Doctor a strange look, and began trying to help the man who was an innocent in her eyes her out from under the rocks. The Doctor grabbed her elbow and pulled her away. "Don't you know who this is?"

"No, I don't, should I?" Amy asked, tugging herself out of the Doctor's grip, and returning to shifting rocks out of the way, along with River's help.

The Doctor took a step back, looking up at the cavern ceiling, rubbing his face with his hands. "First the Daleks, now this. Oh, Amy, Amy, Amy, why can't you remember?" After a brief pause, he jumped back into action, attempting to appear upbeat and energetic once more, that facade slowly, but steadily crumbling. "Anyways, we should be off!"

The Master was running out of time. "Think about it. I'll be of use to you. I'm just another set of eyes to keep on the Angel. You need me," the Master commanded, this situation becoming far too familiar to him.

"I don't need you, I've never needed you," the Doctor sneered.

That hurt far more than the Master cared to admit, but Amy and River pushed up the rock trapping his leg momentarily away, and he quickly pulled himself out of that mess. He did a mental checklist: two arms, two legs, ten fingers, two eyes, two ears, two hearts, good.

"Yep, I think you've got everything," Amy remarked, laughing at him. Apparently his internal checklist was more vocal than he intended.

"Thank you both," the Master said, really needing to gain their approval if the Doctor was to want him gone. He always did listen to his human... pets? Friends? far better than any other force the universe has yet come up with. "Who are you two?" he asked, because names are important and a human's trust tends to depend on first impressions.

"I am Doctor River Song," the curly haired lady said, giving him a smile. Lovely, she got over her initial conflict quickly. The Master decided he liked her.

"Amy Pond, and you are?" the redhead asked. He also decided he liked her, too.

"I am," he paused momentarily to rifle through his internal list of aliases, "Yana. Professor Yana, if you like." River thankfully didn't comment on the false name, even though she knew about the whole Saxon incident. He really did like her.

Before anyone could say anything else, they heard gunfire ricochet off the Aplan statues. The Doctor's group returned to underneath the grav-globe, to find a scared little soldier stammering apologies. The Master moved slowly, but refused anyone's help. He could handle himself.

The Doctor instantly bounced back into a childish state, simultaneously insulting Father Octavian and cheering up Sacred Bob.

Father Octavian caught sight of the Master and asked, "Who's he?"

"Survivor," River replied coolly.

Bob was ordered back off into the tunnel Christian and Angelo had gone down. The Master had the sickly feeling he wouldn't be seen again, but decided against voicing his suspicions.

"Isn't there a chance this lot's just going to collapse?" Amy asked. Their group had gone off into the maze. River was at the back, making sure the Master didn't try anything. The Doctor took the lead, still resolutely ignoring the Master, as if not looking at him would make him go away.

"Incredible builders, the Aplans," River remarked, trying to answer Amy in that roundabout way of hers.

"Had dinner with their Chief Architect once," the Doctor began, "Two heads are better than one."

The Master snorted. Good to know the Doctor hasn't lost his terrible sense of humor in this regeneration. "What, you mean you helped him?" asked Amy, shining her torch over a statue's face.

"No, I mean he had two heads," the Doctor clarified. "That book, the very end, what did it say?"

"Hang on," River requested, pulling out their book.

"Read it to me."

The Master looked up. The final resting place of the Aplans soared magnificently overhead. The Master had seen entire galaxies burning, the collapse of a thousand empires, but the sight of the catacombs still took his breath away. Something was wrong, though. Two heads. Something about two heads.

River read, "'What if we had ideas that could think for themselves? What if one day our dreams no longer needed us? When these things occur and are held to be true, the time will be upon us. The time of Angels.'"

They continued climbing up towards the Byzantium, Amy and the Doctor making small talk all the way. River looked concerned about something and she fiddled with the controls on her computer.

"What's wrong?" curious, the Master asked River.

"I don't know," River frowned. "I feel like I'm missing something, but I don't know what."

"Me too," the Master admitted," Something is wrong."

River looked at him strangely, then called up at the group up ahead, "Doctor, there's something. I don't know what it is."

"Yeah, there's something wrong. Don't know what it is yet, either. Working on it." Without pausing for breath, the Doctor added on a ramble about laws against self-marrying, and the Church.

Father Octavian took offense at the Doctor's insults on the Church, but also informed everyone, "Lowest point in the wreckage is only about fifty feet up from here. That way."

"The Church had a point, if you think about it," observed Amy, "The divorces must have been messy."

The Doctor stood still in his tracks, horror dawning upon him. "Oh."

River stopped too. "Oh."

The Master stopped, declining the previous two's "oh" for a word that the TARDIS politely refused to translate.

"Exactly," the Doctor said.

"How could we not notice that?" River asked, frozen with fear.

The Master just swore again. They're so dead. They're all dead.

"Low level perception filter, or maybe we're thick," the Doctor offered.

"This is, what, the thousandth time you've gotten me killed, Doctor? You owe me a couple deaths. I feel like killing you again, dearest," the Master suggested, all empty threats, eyes widened in fear. He continued, "Several times. Very creative ways, I'm thinking medieval torture chamber, lots of blades, bit of fire. Or maybe we could try a black hole. Or that one planet where the very air is acidic and the ground is made of broken glass. I could just push you over, and you'd die, just like that."

The Doctor hummed in response, not paying any particular attention to the other Time Lord's threats. He knew the Master was just scared, yet the Doctor was filled with fear himself as well.

"Nobody move. Nobody move. Everyone stay exactly where they are," ordered the Doctor. "Bishop, I am truly sorry. I've made a mistake and we are all in terrible danger."

"What danger?" Octavian asked. He hadn't caught on yet.

"The Aplans," River tried to explain.

"The Aplans?" Octavian asked. He still didn't get it.

"They've got two heads," River elaborated, not taking her eyes off the statue closest to her.

"Yes, I get that," said Octavian, displaying remarkable amounts of patience, "So?"

"So why don't the statues?" the Doctor asked. "Everyone, over there. Just move. Don't ask questions, don't speak."

Lot's of orders, this regeneration. Still, the Master obeyed, because he didn't want to die. Oh, he hoped the Doctor wouldn't ever remember any incident where the Master listened to him. He probably would. Shit.

After they all filed into the alcove, away from the statues, the Doctor ordered, "Okay, I want you all to switch off your torches."

"Sir?"

"Just do it."

Their lights flickered off, one by one, only leaving the Doctor's. "Okay, I'm going to turn this one off, too, just for a moment."

"Don't you dare," the Master began, ignored, of course.

"Are you sure about this?" River questioned.

The Doctor paused, possibly for dramatic effect. "No." He switched his torch off, plunging the whole cavern into darkness, immediately flicking it back on again.

The statues had moved. Not as fast as regular Angels, but they had certainly moved to face them.

"Oh, my God!" Amy yelped. "They've moved."

The Doctor darted up ahead, looking at every Angel. One was crouched on the path, reaching out for them. "They're Angels!" the Doctor announced, "All of them."

"But they can't be!" River worried.

"Pretty slow, though. Most Angels would've gotten us by now, simple as a click of the fingers," the Master pointed out.

"Clerics, keep watching them," the Doctor ordered, proceeding onto the next bit of the cavern. "Good point, though, Ma-- man I have never seen before in my life."

"Oh, hello to you, too. Is this what passes for greeting on Earth these days? Back in my day--"

"Oh, shut up," the Doctor snarked, "Every single statue in this maze is a Weeping Angel, every single one, and you want to discuss manners?"

River was bewildered. "But there was only one Angel on that ship. Just the one, I swear."

"Could they have been there already?" Amy speculated. Clever girl.

"The Aplans. What happened? How did they die out?" the Doctor questioned.

"Nobody knows."

The Master sighed. "Well, the angels murdered them, and you just walked into a death trap capable of eradicating an entire civilization. Congratulations." He half expected the Doctor to berate him for antagonizing the humans, but he seemed to feel the same way.

"They don't look like Angels."

"And they're slow, too, like he said. You said they're supposed to be fast."

"Look at them," the Doctor said, crouched down, examining the Angels, "They're dying, losing their form. They must have been down here for centuries, starving."

"Losing their image," Amy pointed out.

"And their image is their power. Power... Power!" The Doctor snapped his fingers, clearly making a connection that the others hadn't. "Don't you see? All that radiation spilling out the drive burn. The crash of the Byzantium wasn't an accident, it was a rescue mission for the Angels. We're in the middle of an army, and it's waking up."

The Master swore, and River stated the obvious, "We need to get out of here fast."

The Bishop reached for his radio and tried to get in contact with his men, but only reached Bob.

The Doctor snatched the walkie-talkie from the Bishop, and began talking to Bob. The Master wasn't paying attention to their words, but judging by the Doctor's expression, something unexpected had happened. Yes, people had probably died, but that hardly bothered this version of the Doctor at all. No, something was wrong, out of place.

Oh. The Angel had killed Bob, and was now using his re-animated consciousness to communicate. Now, that was new.

River, and the other Clerics headed up to escape through the wreckage.

"Yeah, called you an idiot. Sorry, but there's no way we could have rescued your men," the Doctor said, an empty apology for the Bishop.

"I know that, sir," Octavian replied evenly, "And when you've flown away in your little blue box, I'll explain that to their families."

_'The attempted assassination of the current Lord President is not a charge to be taken lightly, Lord Master,' a member of the Council warned. 'Considering your previous record, the correct punishment should be erasing of every trace of you from Time and Space. Do you understand these charges?'_

_'I understand,' the Master replied._

_'But... considering the circumstances,' the Council member continued, 'it has been agreed that you spend the rest of this life in prison. Do you understand these charges?'_

_'I understand.'_

_He always had been known as a difficult being, even when he was still just a child running through the red grass of his father's estates, so a collective sigh of relief went through the Council. What was left of the Council, anyways. A little under half of them remained. Some had died in the War, some had been erased from history entirely, having only left behind false memories. Some had simply refused to attend the meeting, reasoning that reconstructing their planet, tending to the wounded, and taking care of the deceased should take priority over ancient rules and tradition._

_Those still clinging to duty to have a sense of order were the only ones remaining at the meeting. Each council member looked exhausted and disheveled, many looked as if they had been crying, with red eyes and blotchy tear-stained cheeks._

_Gallifrey was in shambles. The Doctor had long since came with all thirteen of his silly faces and 'saved' Gallifrey. Yes, he saved the physical planet, but there wasn't much left to save, really. Most everyone had died, and everyone left was drowning in grief. The Master's daughter had been killed the day the Daleks took hold of the Cruciform. Her death took all the fight out of him. It was why he ran._

_His cell wasn't even guarded. He could've walked out at any time, but he didn't see the need to. On his walk from the hearing room, to the prisons he had seen enough._

_Children crying on the streets, clutching to burnt, tattered toys and asking about their parents. Hard to find someone when names meant nothing in the War, and when they could have regenerated ten times since they last saw their family. Burns unable to be fully healed by Time Lord technology up and down soldiers' bodies, courtesy of the latest Dalek weapons. Fractures in Time and Space threaded through the streets. Walking into one feels like an infinity of potential futures and pasts happening to you at once, but after you pass through you're fine, just a bit cold and hollow feeling, pulling whatever tattered clothing you have tighter around you. Monuments to fallen soldiers, lovers, parents, friends, torn up weeds messily arranged in flower bouquets, names clumsily scratched into stone with shaking hands._

_The Doctor had saved the planet, sure, but what about those left behind? ___

__Father Octavian left, and the Master trailed after him. The Bishop passed Amy by, but the Master stopped._ _

__"What are you doing?" he questioned. "Don't wait for that idiot, doing that will only get you killed."_ _

__She glared at him. "I can't move."_ _

__He frowned. "Why not? Did something happen?"_ _

__The Doctor rushed past. "Don't wait for me. Go, run."_ _

__"I can't," Amy said, and the Doctor rushed back. "No, really. I can't."_ _

__"Why not?" the Doctor asked._ _

__"Look at it. Look at my hand. It's stone!"_ _

__"No, it's not," the Master told her._ _

__"You looked into the eyes of the Angel, didn't you?" the Doctor asked, somehow deciding that this question would be more important than surviving. He shone his torch obnoxiously into her eyes._ _

__"I couldn't stop myself, I tried," Amy said. She still wouldn't move her hand, but only because she was sure she couldn't._ _

__"Listen to me. It's messing with your head. Your hand is not made of stone."_ _

__"It is. Look at it."_ _

__"Here, let me," the Master volunteered, reaching for her head. He might be able to figure out what the Angel had done, and reverse it. Or at the very least, he could order her to believe her hand was normal again._ _

__The Doctor bristled protectively. "Don't touch her!"_ _

__"I was just going to scan her mind," the Master said dismissively, but backed off anyways. "I'm far better at it than you."_ _

__"I said, don't touch her!" the Doctor repeated, standing himself in between the Master and Amy._ _

__"Fine, fine, but if she dies, it's on your head, not mine," the Master lectured, turning back to keep an eye on the two Angels, even as the flickering lights let them approach. He ignored their petty argument of sacrifice and survival, wondering exactly how disastrous it would be to regenerate after a broken neck on this planet. He was, pardon the pun, snapped out of concentration by--_ _

__"Ow!" Amy yelped._ _

__"Ah! See? Not stone! Now run," the Doctor said, then grabbed the Master's shoulder, as if to tell him, 'yeah, didn't forget about you either, regrettably.'_ _

__"You bit me!" protested Amy. The Master threw his head back, laughing._ _

__The Doctor glared at him, "Shut up." To Amy, he added, "Yeah, and you're alive."_ _

__"Look, I've got a mark."_ _

__"Great that he's kept up that talent."_ _

__The Doctor spluttered, turning red, but Amy didn't seem to notice and continued, "Look at my hand, that's a red mark right there."_ _

__"Yes, and you're alive, did I mention?"_ _

__"Blimey, your teeth. Have you got space teeth?"_ _

__"Yeah, alive, all I'm saying."_ _

__They ran back after the group, their two Angels right behind them._ _

__River, the Clerics, and the Doctor all made assessments of the situation, best summed up by River Song's, "There's no way up, no way back, no way out. No pressure, but this is usually when you have a really good idea."_ _

__"Or a really stupid one," the Master remarked._ _

__"There's always a way out!" declared the Doctor, ignoring the other Time Lord._ _

__The radio cut in before the Doctor could elaborate on this situation's 'always'. "Doctor? Can I speak to the Doctor, please?" Angel Bob requested._ _

__"Hello, Angels," the Doctor said with far too much cheer for the situation, "What's your problem?"_ _

__"Your power will not last much longer, and the Angels will be with you shortly. Sorry, sir."_ _

__"Why are you telling me this?"_ _

__"There's something the Angels are very keen you should know before the end."_ _

__The Master listened half in fear, half in awe as the Angels deliberately tried to make the Doctor angry._ _

__"Which is?"_ _

__"I died in fear."_ _

__"I'm sorry?"_ _

__"You told me my fear would keep me alive, but I died afraid, in pain, and alone. You made me trust you, and when it mattered, you let me down."_ _

__Huh. The Angel put into words everything the Master never could. Fascinating._ _

__"I'm sorry, sir," Angel Bob apologized. "The Angels were very keen for you to know that."_ _

__"Well then, the Angels have made their second mistake, because I'm not going to let that pass." The Doctor promised, "I'm sorry you're dead, Bob, but I swear to whatever's left of you, they'll be sorrier." Nothing gets the Doctor more involved than insulting his self-righteousness._ _

__"But you're trapped, sir, and about to die," Angel Bob informed the Doctor, having clearly underestimated exactly who it was they were dealing with._ _

__"Yeah, I'm trapped. And you know what? Speaking of traps, this trap has got a great big mistake in it. A great, big, whopping mistake."_ _

__Angel Bob asked, "What mistake, sir?"_ _

__The Doctor ignored his question, and turned to everyone in the group, asking for their trust, before finally turning to the Master, "Trust me?"_ _

__"Not as far as I could throw you." Far more than you trust me, though. Not that I blame you for that, though, the Master thought._ _

__"Will you anyways?"_ _

__He smiled, a tad fatalistically. "Certainly, my dear Doctor."_ _

__The Doctor grabbed the Bishop's gun. "I'm about to do something incredibly stupid and dangerous. When I do, jump!" When saying 'jump', he jumped, just in case members of this group might have forgotten how their legs work._ _

__He repeated his instructions to the Bishop._ _

__"Sorry, can I ask again?" Angel Bob cut in, "You mentioned a mistake we made."_ _

__The Doctor aimed the gun up at the Byzantium. "Oh, big mistake. Huge. Didn't anyone ever tell you there's one thing you never put in a trap? If you're smart, if you value your continued existence, if you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there is one thing you never, ever put in a trap."_ _

__"And what would that be, sir?"_ _

__"Me," the Doctor said, firing at the gravity globe suspended above their heads._ _


	2. Flesh and Stone

The Master stumbled on his feet and looked around a bit. When he realized where they were, he started laughing.

"What? What are you laughing about?"

"Look at where we are."

"I don't know where we are!"

"Exactly where we were," River explained.

"No, we're not." She turned to the Doctor. "Doctor, what am I looking at? Explain."

"Oh, come on, Amy, think. The ship crashed with the power still on, yeah? So what else is still on? The artificial gravity. One good jump, and up we fell. Shot out the grav globe to give us an updraft, and here we are."

The Master stared "up" at the Angels as they took out the lights, one by one. He heard a thunk behind him as the Doctor landed in the corridor. Oh, this situation must be so nauseating for the humans unused to dimensions being manipulated in strange ways. He jumped in after the Doctor.

Amy jumped in, too, and the Master steadied her when she stumbled. He grinned and she smiled back. The Doctor glared at him for that, but the Master wasn't technically doing anything wrong, so the Doctor had no real reason to protest.

After everyone was in, the Doctor closed the hatch behind them. The ship was immediately jarred as the Angels jumped up after them.

"This whole place is a death trap," Octavian warned.

A bulkhead further up the corridor slid shut, trapping them.

"No, it's a time bomb," the Doctor corrected, "Well, it's a death trap and a time bomb. And now it's a dead end."

"A time bomb death trap? I'm good at those," the Master remarked, tapping the wall of the corridor.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "You're good at making those, not surviving them."

"Same thing."

"No, it's not." The Doctor turned to River. "What's through here?"

"Secondary flight deck," she told him, pulling open a control panel and messing with it.

"Okay, so we've basically run up the inside of a chimney, yeah?" Amy nervously wondered, "So what if the gravity fails?"

"I've thought about that," the Doctor assured her.

"And?"

"And well all plunge to our deaths. See? Thought about it."

"Squish," the Master supplied unhelpfully.

"The security protocols are still live," the Doctor continued. "There's no way to override them. It's impossible."

"How impossible?" asked River.

"Two minutes," the Doctor estimated.

"One, if we work together," insisted the Master.

"Fine."

They crouched by the bulkhead, trying to get it open as the lights flickered and the Angels entered the ship.

The Doctor managed to isolate the lighting grid, keeping the lights on no matter what the Angels tried. He explained how he would have to reroute all the power in order to open the bulkhead, temporarily killing the lights. The humans' faces fell as they realized that the Angels would almost certainly kill them in the time it would take to get the door open.

The Master stared at the Angels, hoping this day wouldn't be his last.

The Doctor instructed Amy on what to do, "Amy, when the lights go down, the wheel should release. Spin it clockwise four turns."

"Ten."

"No, four. Four turns."

"Yeah, four. I heard you."

The Bishop counted down. At one, the Doctor rerouted the power and all hell broke loose. Bullets flew down the corridor and the Angels advanced. The bulkhead opened, and they all piled into the next room, the secondary flight deck.

The wheel on the door began to turn as the Angels tried to enter, but Father Octavian placed a device on the door. "Magnetized the door. Nothing could turn that wheel now," he claimed.

"Yeah?" the Doctor laughed.

The wheel haltingly began to turn again. "Dear God!" Octavian exclaimed.

"Ah, now you're getting it," said the Doctor, "You've bought us time, though. That's good. I am good with time."

The doors to either side of the flight deck began to turn also, but two Clerics ran to them and stuck mag devices on them as well.

"Doctor, how long have we got?" the Bishop asked.

"Five minutes, max."

"Nine," Amy said.

"Five," the Doctor corrected warily.

"Five, right, yeah."

"Why'd you say nine?"

"I didn't."

The Master paced around as everyone else discussed escape options. He scanned the room telepathically, reaching out and looking at the shapes of everyone's minds. Not in detail enough that they would notice, but enough to understand who was who with his eyes shut. His hearts nearly skipped a beat when he felt the overwhelming consciousness of the Angels outside those doors. Their overwhelming hunger, malice, and cold, what was that, amusement?, washed over him and he stumbled, leaning against a control panel for support. The Master tore his focus away from them in favor of scanning the people around him instead.

The Bishop was rigidly organized in his thoughts, concerned first and foremost with keeping his remaining men safe, but a good part of his mind already dictating what he might say to the families of Bob, Angelo, Christian. And something, something about River Song, a secret, a threat.

Well, that was more detail than he meant to find, but the Church hadn't started training telepaths yet, so the Master was probably safe in doing some light prodding. He hoped.

The remaining Clerics were fairly simple in mental layout, too. Not to say they were unintelligent, by human standards, but they weren't confusing to read. Mostly scared, 'I hope I get to see my family again', type thoughts scattered about.

River Song... Her mind was golden energy, confusing twists and turns. She smelled strange, too. Like a timeline twisted back on itself too many times to make any sort of sense. She seemed to notice him examining her mind, and turned around to face him, shooting him a dry look of 'whatever you're trying, I suggest you stop it now before I shoot you.' He withdrew from her mind with a shrug and a smile, giving her personal space to think again. River smiled thinly back, turning to the newly-revealed oxygen factory forest at the heart of the ship.

The Master walked up back to where the Doctor and Amy were standing. It was becoming rather annoying that the Doctor had been trying to ignore him this whole time. The Doctor stood, concerned, staring at his pet human, questioning her about her countdown, which she was apparently unaware of. The Master considered ways to distract the Doctor, but was distracted himself by the Angels talking over the radio again.

"Doctor? Excuse me? Hello, Doctor? Angel Bob here, sir." Oh, how sweet, it picked up on the Doctor's nickname.

The Doctor spun around and sat in the pilot's chair. "Ah, there you are, Angel Bob. How's life? Sorry, bad subject."

Ignoring their talk, because, honestly, in what way does it concern him, really, he turned to the control panel and tried to figure out exactly what planet the ship had crash-landed on.

If it had inhabitants that had developed interplanetary, or preferably interstellar travel, he could steal some form of transport and go someplace with accurate space-time travel capabilities. Unless this planet somehow had that type of technology, his best bet would be to find some Time Agent, kill them, and take their vortex manipulator. The vortex manipulators were disgustingly nauseating to use, but they would get the job done.

All he needed was some way to get back to Malcassairo, End of the Universe. He was certain that's where his TARDIS is. It might be a bit difficult to find, because, unlike some idiots, his Chameleon Circuit still works, but he was certain he could.

Theoretically, he could just steal the Doctor's-- it wouldn't be the first time. But there were two things he was missing.

One, an understanding of this new Doctor. He didn't know how he worked, he didn't know what made him angry, he didn't know what made him sad, he didn't know how far the Doctor could be pushed before snapping. The Master was afraid the Doctor already had been pushed too far. He was afraid he was standing next to a complete stranger. He shoved those thoughts away. The Doctor was still the Doctor as long as he looked up in the sky and wanted to see all all the stars. He was still the Doctor if he had hope, if he had mercy, if he was kind.

The second thing he was missing was a plan. Stealing a TARDIS without a plan only works for the Doctor. Also, he wasn't sure how the Doctor's TARDIS would react to him. Most TARDISes don't have much independent thought, but it's the Doctor's ship. Who knows, she might just decide to fly into a supernova and open the doors, or remove all oxygen, just to spite him. Admirable trait in a ship, spite. Emotions.

Ah! There. Alfava Metraxis. Judging by River's earlier comment of 'thirty centuries out of his time', fifty-first century. So he might even be able to find a vortex manipulator on this planet, that's good news. The sooner he got away, the better.

The Angels began to screech, like tearing metal and nails on chalkboard, but worse. Their malicious amusement pressed heavily on the Master's mental shields and he paled, swaying on his feet.

"It's hard to put it in your terms, Doctor Song," Angel Bob clarified, "but as best I understand it, the Angels are laughing."

"Laughing?" the Doctor said, a horrified whisper.

"Because you haven't noticed, sir," Bob taunted, the Angels using his voice, his mannerisms to mock the Doctor for not knowing. "The Doctor in the TARDIS hasn't noticed."

"Doctor," Octavian called, trying to get his attention.

"No, wait. There's something I've...," the Doctor trailed off as he heard a hissing, popping noise behind him. He turned around. "...missed."

"That's-- that's-- that's like the crack from my bedroom wall when I was a little girl," Amy stammered.

"Yes," the Doctor agreed, pushing a piece of machinery to where he could stand on it and reach the Crack better.

"Okay, enough. We're moving out," Octavian ordered. His Clerics went out into the forest after him, as did Amy and River, after a bit of protesting. The Doctor stayed behind for a moment to analyze the Crack in the wall, and the Master stayed, too. He knew if he wanted to survive, his best and worst chance would be to remain nearby the Doctor.

The Doctor climbed up to view the Crack closer. He scanned it with his screwdriver, while the Master warily watched him from the floor.

The Doctor apparently disliked what the screwdriver reported, muttering, "Oh, that's bad. Ah, that's extremely not good."

The Master tilted his head curiously, taking a deep breath. "It smells like... you. Well, more specifically, your TARDIS."

"That is so weird you know what I smell like," the Doctor told him, making a weird face.

"No, it's not," the Master defended, "You've been spending too much time with humans, again."

"It's weird for Time Lords, too," the Doctor insisted, hopping down from examining the Crack.

"No," the Master corrected, rolling his eyes, "The word you're looking for is 'intimate'.

The Doctor made a disgusted noise, spitting out, "I don't want to be 'intimate' with you."

The Master remained silent for a beat or two, then softly said, "... We were friends, once. Do you remember that?" He stared at the Doctor, honest emotion written there.

Switching to English, and ignoring the Master's question, the Doctor turned away uncomfortably and instructed, "We need to get back to the group."

As they both turned to follow the rest into the forest, they looked up and saw they were surrounded by Angels.

"Do not blink," the Doctor instructed, nearly as petrified as the quantum-locked beasts before him. The Angels grabbed the back of the Doctor's coat. The Master froze, one step into the forest, torn between survival and keeping the Doctor alive.

The Angels seemed to be more preoccupied by the Time energy emanating from the Crack than keeping the Doctor captive, however. This was made obvious by how little they seemed to care as the Doctor wriggled out of his jacket. Well, it was hard to tell what the Angels valued as important, due to how they couldn't move when viewed, and couldn't talk on their own. The Master couldn't keep an eye on all of them, but they didn't make any further moves toward him or the Doctor, so that led him to believe their intentions were held elsewhere.

Fortunately, the Master didn't have much time to consider the Angel's priorities, because the Doctor managed to wriggle out of his jacket and they sprinted out of secondary flight deck.

They dashed through the forest, jumping over roots and clumps of moss. The Master had a ridiculous smile on his face; they had nearly died, but they were alive. They were alive, and he was running with his friend again, just this once.

The Doctor and the Master arrived as River Song was instructing the Bishop on how to keep the Doctor alive. For someone who spent most of his time trying to kill the man, the Master was rather adept at making sure he lived, too.

"... And if he's alive, I'll never forgive him. And, Doctor, you're standing right behind me, aren't you?"

The Doctor climbed over a fallen log and replied, "Oh, yeah." He looked down and seemed to realize that he and the Master were holding hands. He let go quickly, and his face flushed with embarrassment. The Master, however, seemed indifferent to the situation.

"I hate you," the River claimed.

"You don't," insisted the Doctor.

Father Octavian established a perimeter around them, sending his Clerics to each line of approach.

"How did you get past them?" asked River.

The Master crouched down by Amy. "Amelia? Can you look at me? That's it, Amelia." He brushed her hair out of her face, noting her high temperature. Most humans felt feverish to a Time Lord, but she felt hotter than humans usually do. "What is wrong with you?" he wondered aloud.

"I found a Crack in the wall and told them it was the End of the Universe," explained the Doctor, answering River.

"What was it?" Amy murdered weakly.

"The End of the Universe," said the Doctor.

"But I've been, and it's not like that," the Master protested, confused. "It's freezing and dark. That End was burning."

The Doctor turned to him and explained in the more natural Gallifreyan for these phrases, "No, I mean total-End-unmaking, not natural-End."

"Ohhh, right," the Master replied in kind. "I find that very terrifying."

The Doctor nodded, agreeing that, 'yes, this is incredibly terrifying', and snatched the med scanner from River. "Let's have a look, then."

"So, what's wrong with me?" Amy asked.

The Master glanced at the screen. Well, shit. She was dying.

River lied, and told her she would be fine, and the Doctor told her the cold truth, that she was dying.

The Doctor rambled, trying to talk his way through his thought process.

Amy cut him off. "Doctor."

"Busy!"

In reply, the only word she could manage was, "Scared."

"'Course you're scared, you're dying. Shut up."

"Okay, let him think," River said, making excuses for him.

"Just because he's thinking doesn't mean he gets to be an ass," the Master interjected.

Several Angels appeared around their group, kept in place by the watchful eye of the Clerics.

The Doctor, still rambling, finally came to the conclusion that an Angel had crawled into her mind through her eyes. Shit.

The Master looked closely into her eyes. He could see it. He could see the Angel. He slumped backwards on the mossy ground. He stared at his hands, noting distantly they were shaking violently. At one point, he could control all of his outward reactions to events. He could appear impassive, collected in any situation. His control seemed to be slipping.

The sound of the radio jarred him. It seemed to be quite good at that.

It was the Doctor. "Bob, why are they making her count?"

"To make her afraid, sir," Bob dutifully replied.

"Okay, but why? What for?"

"For fun, sir."

The Doctor threw the communicator in anger, and the Master flinched.

The Doctor continued in a rush of words and explanations, and River did her best to assist with his process. Overall conclusion: if the Angel is in her eyes, shut off her eyes. How?

"Amy, close your eyes."

"No. No, I don't want to."

"Good, 'cause that's not you, that's the Angel inside of you. It's afraid. Do it. Close your eyes."

Amy shut her eyes tightly and the med scanner's screen turned from its previous red, to green with a loud beep.

"She's normalizing. Oh, you did it! You did it!" River exclaimed, her adoration for the Doctor clear.

"Actually, she did," the Master corrected. He was being rude, but he didn't really care. "She went against the Angel and shut her eyes." He hummed. "Tough little human. You always do pick the best." A tiny thought at the back of his head insisted, 'Good. They're more fun to break.' He shoved that aside. Not useful, not helpful, and above all, not worth caring about.

The Master stood up, and brushed himself off. He faintly kept track of the conversation while he examined his scenario, taking count of the variables. Four Clerics. One Bishop. One lady that smells very odd, but the scent is very familiar somehow. One very scared, very brave human named Amelia that is unable to open her eyes, due to an Angel being locked in the visual center of her brain. One Doctor, a later regeneration than the one he last saw at the End of Time, but earlier than the one he most recently met on Gallifrey. An uncountable number of Angels. One ship leaking radiation. Several human colonies above the catacombs. One TARDIS somewhere on the planet, presumably.

Physical count: his injuries were healing, slower than they should be for a Time Lord, but at least they actually were getting better. But, by the gods, everything hurt. That wasn't due to the injuries, though. Botched resurrections tend to have a horrible effect on the system, even after a bit of Time. He figured his next regeneration would sort that out. Smeared in grime and dust. Clothes ragged and torn, an odd combination between twenty-first century Earth, and prisoner of Gallifrey. Aka, a ragged crimson and orange shirt, and matching trousers, with a worn black hoodie over top. Shoes worn out and beat up they barely served their purpose of being shoes anymore. Facial hair forming a scraggly beard that could be like the ones he used to wear in former bodies if he ever got the chance to clean himself up again. It had been several centuries since his Saxon days for him, so he had appeared to age a bit. Perhaps with a bit of suggestion, humans wouldn't connect him with that mess anymore?

Mental check: shields up, and well-protected. Nothing would leak through, and no one could get in. He had been dissociating heavily, but hopefully he could get that cleared up soon. His telepathic abilities seemed to be fully functioning, thankfully. Drums, still gone ever since the link served its purpose. And, well, with them left that persistent will to survive at all costs, the desire to conquer, to destroy, to raze. He just wanted to rest. Old habits die hard, though, he supposed.

Content with his inspection, he settled down on the fallen log next to Amy, ignoring the glare he received from the Doctor for doing so.

"... I'll be back for you soon as I can, I promise," the Doctor said.

"You always say that."

"I always come back."

The Master added, "He always says that." At the look he was given from both Amy and the Doctor he muttered, "Fine, okay, sorry. Not helping."

The Doctor walked off after the Bishop and River, giving parting orders to the Clerics. The Master stood up to follow him, but the Doctor placed his hand on his chest, stopping him in his tracks.

The Master smacked his hand off. "Rude."

"You're not coming with us," stated the Doctor.

"Why not?" questioned the Master, knowing full well why the Doctor wouldn't.

"I don't trust you."

"Good, that means your brain is still functioning," he snarked. "I was starting to worry about that."

"But I can't just leave you here with her, either," the Doctor insisted.

"Well, you don't seem to want me with you."

"I don't!"

"Just let me stay here then!"

"No!"

"You won't trust me? Fine. I get it." He shifted his weight. "I give my oath as a Time Lord of the Prydonian chapter that I will not harm Amelia Pond in any way, shape, or form."

"I can't trust your word."

"That's the issue, my dear. You can. You can always trust me to keep my word." He didn't add, 'it's your word that cannot be trusted,' but he certainly thought it.

The Doctor considered it for a moment. "Fine," he snapped, and stomped off.

The Doctor reappeared again. Different. Wearing a jacket now. Rolled up sleeves, watch on left wrist. Hushed voice. Different Doctor, later in his time stream. He looked at the Master sadly, brushing his mind against the other Time Lord's. 'I am sorry.'

'Sorry for what?'

Shameguiltpaindoomdeathendendendendend. 'I am sorry... that this may be goodbye.'

'No you can't--'

The Doctor cut off the connection with no further response, and grabbed Amy's clasped, fidgeting hands.

He didn't respond to any further attempts by the Master to communicate, for once in his lives able to shut him out. The Doctor continued talking to Amy.

'Please, Doctor, tell me what's going on, I don't understand, tell me, tell me, I can help,' he all but shouted, shoving his thoughts the Doctor's way. The Doctor flinched. Maybe he wasn't shielding as well as the Master had first assumed.

'Please.'

And he was gone again.

"Doctor? Doctor?" Amy called out, afraid of being alone in the dark.

Hollowly, the Master said, "He left."

Amy huffed and crossed her arms. She tapped her foot, impatiently, nervously, maybe. She turned to where she assumed the Master to be and asked him several questions that had been bothering her, "So, how do you know the Doctor? And what's a Prydonian? Are you really another Time Lord? He told me he was the last. Also, if River Song is probably his wife at some point in the future, what does that make you? You both talk to him like you've been married for ages. Who are you?"

The Master blinked. He had forgotten how many questions the Doctor's... associates tended to ask. "Well, that's a lot of questions."

"I'm dying, so just shut up and tell me."

"You're not dying--"

"Dying. Tell," she simplified.

"Okay, fine. Yes, I am another Time Lord. The Doctor is not the last, but he doesn't know that, and I can't tell him. He's going to figure it out on his own, eventually.

"Don't know about River Song. She seems... interesting. The Doctor and I are not married, but we have known each other all our lives. It's been hundreds of years, so that must count for something.

"The Doctor and I grew up together, we went to school together. We were... friends. The Prydonian chapter is a sector of the Academy we went to.

"How do you know the Doctor, Amelia?"

"He crash-landed in my backyard when I was seven."

"Crash-landed? All these years and he still can't fly his ship. I'm fairly certain she has a full mind of her own."

"Then he came back twelve years later."

"He's a terrible pilot."

"Oh, and you're so much better?"

"By far," he insisted. "I actually passed the class."

"Does he save the Earth often? He's saved it twice since I've met him." Amy continued to tell the Master of the Atraxi and Prisoner Zero.

"You mean to tell me he brought back the Atraxi, only to tell them off?"

"Yeah, and he told them that he was the Doctor, and ordered them to run."

"Did they run?"

Amy nodded.

"That's...”

"Hot?” Any suggested, well, suggestively.

“I was going to say impressive, but I suppose, yes,” he replied. “Hot.” 

A few stories later. "... So, yes. Yes, he does save the Earth often. The entire Universe on a good day."

"What do you so on a good day?"

"Oh, destroy the Universe. It's our thing, I suppose. I break things, he fixes them."

"You're not breaking things now."

"... Yeah. You're right. I'm not."

The lights began to flicker and the Master tensed up, falling silent.

"Hey, what's going on out there?" Amy asked, fear creeping into her voice, as if she was remembering what terrible danger she was in.

"The lights are going out," the Master told her.

"The Angels are still grouping," a soldier, Marco, responded. "Are you getting this too?"

"The trees? Yeah," Phillip replied.

"What's wrong with the trees?"

The soldiers appeared to be fighting their every instinct in order to stay put and obey their Bishop's orders. "Here too, sir," said Pedro. "They're ripping the Tree Borgs apart."

"What is it? What's happening? Tell me, I can't see," Amy demanded, still bravely keeping her eyes shut.

"It's the trees, ma'am. The trees are going out," reported Marco.

"Angels advancing, sir."

"Over here again."

"Weapons primed. Combat distance five feet. Wait for it."

"What is it? What's happening? Just tell me!"

"The lights are going out, and the Angels are coming for us, Amelia."

A bright light washed over the forest, bringing a wave of nausea and fear for the Master. He felt the presence of the Angels retreat, and he wished he could go with them. He groaned.

"Marco, the Angels have gone. Where'd they go?"

"What, the Angels?--" Amy began, but her voice disintegrated into static for the Master.

God, all he could feel was the overwhelming wrongness of it all. He hadn't felt anything like that since the War, and the very thought of that threatened to destroy him. The Crack was a split in the fabric of reality, a gap, a tear. Captain Jack's mild irritation, buzzing in the back of his skull of wrong, wrong, wrong had absolutely nothing on this.

He heaved a deep breath, and shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling for something solid, something real.

He pulled out a small rock. Well, no, not a rock. A flower, incased in resin the shape of a rock. Well, no, not a flower, or entirely encased in resin. A moment of time, the shape of a rock, showing a flower. Time Lord art. A bit of home, wherever you go.

He didn't particularly care for the details at the moment, though. He just held tightly to it until moments of reality faded back in from behind the static.

"Point me at the light," he heard Amy say.

"Amelia, don't," the Master ordered, finally pulling himself together enough to speak.

"I still have a bit of countdown left," she reasoned.

"No, I mean I can show you without you having to open your eyes. No need to be all dramatic about it and risk your life. I can share with you an image of what I'm seeing."

"Go on then, do it."

"I must warn you, looking at that thing makes me feel like I'm suffering five hangovers at once, and you might feel that too."

"Don't care. Do it."

The Master walked up to her and slipped his hand into hers. As simple of a projection as he could do. No sound projected, no thoughts, just light reflections processed as images.

"It's the same shape. The crack in my wall. It's following me! How can it be following me? It was the same shape."

He dropped her hand and wandered back to the log. He turned the not-stone over and over in his hand, watching as an unseen wind pushed it gently.

"Crispin and who?" Marco had forgotten them. The two other Clerics had never existed.

Pedro was sent off to investigate as well. A moment later: "Who's Pedro?"

"I need to get a closer look at that light, whatever it is." And then soon Marco never existed either.

The Doctor's voice came on over Amy's communicator. "Amy? Amy? Is that you?"

"Doctor?"

"Where are you? Are the Clerics still with you?"

"They've gone. There was a light, and they walked into the light. Doctor, they didn't even remember each other."

"No, they wouldn't. And... him? Is he still there?"

The Master grabbed the communicator from Amy and said, "Still alive, Doctor. Much to your dismay, yes I know, so you've told me many a time."

The Doctor sighed. Exasperated, or relieved, the Master couldn't tell. Maybe the Doctor didn't know himself.

"Amy, I'm sorry," the Doctor apologized. "I made a mistake I never should have left you there."

"Well, what do I do now?" Amy asked.

"You come to us. The Primary Flight Deck, the other end of the forest."

"I can't see," Amy insisted, just in case the Doctor had forgotten. "I can't open my eyes."

"I'll lead you," said the Master, taking her hand. He paused, as if waiting for some protest from the Doctor, but it never came.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" questioned the Doctor wearily.

"Are you?" challenged the Master.

"Well, then. Get going," instructed the Doctor. "There's Time Energy spilling out of that crack, and you have to stay ahead of it."

The Master began to move ahead in the direction of the Primary Flight Deck. "But the Angels, they're everywhere," Amy protested.

"I'm sorry, I really am, but the Angels can only kill you," the Doctor warned.

"What does the Time Energy do?" asked Amy.

"Just keep moving!"

"Tell me," she demanded.

"If the Time Energy catches up with you, you'll never have been born. It will erase every moment of your existence. You will never have lived at all. Now keep your eyes shut, and keep moving."

They passed a few steps further into the forest.

"That happened to my daughter's squadron once, you know?" the Master said, conversationally, as if it were a trivial thing. "I think she fancied one of them, but she was at that age where she never told me anything anymore. She was the only survivor of the attack. She had to tell their families that their children they remembered had never existed at all. Can you imagine that, mourning a child you never had? Crying but not knowing why? Feeling like your hearts had been torn out of your chest, but for no other reason than something that Was, now Wasn't?"

"That's awful."

"Yes, yes it was."

"What about your daughter? Where is she?"

"Dead. She died."

The Doctor was frozen in horror. He had never even-- he never even thought of that. Never even thought to ask. "I'm sorry."

"Yes, I'm sure you are, Doctor."

"Was that, was that, when was that?"

"In the War's linear Timestream? The day the Daleks took the Cruciform. For us? The day before the Psilent Songbox and the Cylors."

"The day before you ran," stated the Doctor, with cold finality.

"Don't you dare. Don't you dare say it like that. Don't say I ran like it was something shameful. My daughter was dead, and you..." the Master trailed off. "You." He sighed. "What in the whole Universe was there left for me in the War?"

"I needed you," the Doctor said pleadingly.

"Oh, please. After Rassilon ordered you to find me, I'm sure," he bit out.

"How did you know about that?"

"Easy guess. I was still the perfect warrior for a Time War, even if I was nothing more than a grieving coward in the Council's eyes."

Amy didn't want to hear them talk like this. She cut in, "Can you make me see again, like you did earlier?"

"I can show you what I am seeing, yes. Are you sure?" asked the Master, in a far softer tone.

"It would be less scary in the dark," she admitted, truthfully not as scared as she implied, but it drew his attention away nonetheless.

"If you insist," the Master said, taking her hand again.

"Doctor? Angels all around us. If you would kindly have a brilliant idea to get her out of this alive, that would be wonderful."

"Well, sort of. Amy, the Angels are scared, and running, and right now they're not that interested in you. They'll assume they can see you, and their instincts will kick in. All you've got to do is walk like you can see."

The Master muttered something that sounded a tiny bit like 'oh my god, you idiot,' and carefully helped Amy maneuver around the statues.

Amy tripped over a tree root slightly raised above the ground. As she collided with the dirt, the Angels collectively remembered they outnumbered the two, and began to move. Z the Master couldn't watch all of them at once, and as he turned to watch one group, another advanced. The Angels were nearly upon them, but--

Zap! A white light surrounded them, and they were instantly teleported to the Primary Flight Deck.

River grabbed hold of Amy, and reassured her, "Don't open your eyes. You're on the Flight Deck. The Doctor's here. I teleported you." River turned to the Doctor. "See? Told you I could get it working."

The Master took a moment to regain his bearings, then strode forward and punched the Doctor in the face.

"Ow! What the hell?" The Doctor staggered back a few steps.

The Master hummed. "I'm good now," he informed River, feeling as if he owed her that much of an explanation at least. "Thank you for the teleport. That was brilliant," he added with a grin, ignoring the Doctor's complaints behind him.

"Am I bleeding?" the Doctor asked, blood dripping from his nose. "I think I'm bleeding."

"Just a bit, dear," River told him.

The Doctor tried tipping his head back. "Don't do that, idiot," the Master said. "Tip your head forward, if you tilt it back, the blood will just drain down your throat."

"If you're going to care, you shouldn't have punched me!" the Doctor protested, but obeyed, tilting his head down.

"You deserved it."

The Doctor replied with something the TARDIS refused to translate, and the Master laughed.

An alarm sounded, lights flashing.

"What's that?" River asked, still holding Amy close.

"The Angels are draining the last of the ship's power, which mean's the shield's going to rise," responded the Doctor.

The bulkhead leading to the forest rose, revealing the Angels.

"Angel Bob, I presume," the Doctor said, putting on a false air of confidence.

"The Time Field is coming. It will destroy our reality," an echoing voice replied, vaguely coming from the direction of the central Angel.

Arrogantly the Doctor said, "Yeah, and look at you all, running away. What can I do for you?"

"There is a rupture in Time." Angel Bob stated, pointing out the obvious. "The Angels calculate that if you throw him, or yourself into it, it will close, and they will be saved."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could do, could do that, but why?"

"You friends will be saved, and he will be gone," Bob reasoned.

"Well, there is that."

The Master looked over at the Doctor. 'You do have a plan, don't you?'

The Doctor flinched at the contact, but replied, 'Don't I always?'

'Just buying Time?'

'Yep.'

'Good.'

"I've traveled in time. I'm a complicated space time event, too. Throw me in," River demanded. She didn't want the Doctor to be unmade, or be forced to unmake someone else.

"Oh, be serious. Compared to me, these Angels are are more complicated than you, and it would take every one of them to amount to me, so get a grip."

A bit of protesting from River, but eventually she caught on, and instructed Amy to literally get a grip as well.

"Sir, the Angels need you to sacrifice yourself now," Angel Bob informed the Doctor, polite to the end.

"Thing is, Bob, the Angels are draining all the power from this ship. Every last bit of it. And you know what? I think they've forgotten where they're standing. I think they've forgotten the gravity of the situation. Or to put it another way, Angels." The gravity failed. "Night-night."

The Angels fell, all of them, every last one. The crack closed.

River laughed, a breathy, relieved gasp. "Time to climb up."

"Doctor, what happened?" Amy asked.

"Amy, you can open your eyes now. The Angels have gone."

"Gone?"

"Yes."

And they began to climb.

Gulls cawed, and the waves crashed steadily onto the beach. Amy sat on a rock, wrapped in a blanket, complaining of bruising. The Doctor, and River stood, while the Master sat on the ground, absentmindedly playing with the rocks and sand.

"The Angel in your mind never existed. It can't harm you now."

"Then why do I remember it at all? Those guys on the ship didn't remember each other.

"You're a time traveler now, Amy. It changes the way you see the universe, forever. Good, isn't it?" the Doctor asked, hoping for her approval. It wasn't like she signed a waiver with all of the potential side-effects written on it, so he really hoped she would be okay with it.

Amy smiled in response.

"Time travel doesn't necessarily mean anything, though," the Master said, writing in the sand. "Time is messy. Traveling through it doesn't guarantee a damn thing. Time is messy, and sloppy, so some things remain, even when they're supposed to be erased along with a person."

Amy looked at him, wondering if he learned that through personal experience. She looked to the Doctor. "And the crack, is that gone too?"

"Yeah, for now, but the explosion that caused it is still happening. Somewhere out there, somewhere in time."

The Doctor walked off to go talk to River, and Amy followed a minute after. When they said their goodbyes, and River was on the prison ship once more, they returned.

"So, watcha gonna do with me, Doc?" the Master asked playfully to try to cover up the tension in his voice.

"Don't know," the Doctor drawled. "I probably should execute you for your endless crimes against nearly every living being in all of Eternity, but I know how well you and your executions go by now."

"Can't keep a bad man down."

The Doctor corrected him, "The phrase is 'can't keep a good man down.'"

"Same thing, once you give them both enough time," said the Master, pointedly looking at the Doctor.

"I suppose you'll have to come with me for now," exasperatedly, the Doctor relented, "but don't try to pull any plans, got it?"

"Do I look like someone who has a plan?"

The Doctor was forced to finally look the Master over. "No," he admitted.

"That's settled, then," the Master said, and got up, walking over towards the Doctor's TARDIS.

"Wait, hang on," the Doctor asked, "Where's your TARDIS?"

"Malcassairo," he replied, not turning back.

"Malca-- The end of the universe? But, wait, hang on." The Doctor began walking after the Master, and so did Amy. "How did you escape the Time Lock, then? You must have stolen a TARDIS."

"I can't tell you."

"Says who?"

"Says you."

"What?"

The Master reached the TARDIS and turned back to look at the Doctor. "Come on, dear Doctor, a storm's coming in, and I hear on this planet they're nasty."

"I'm sorry, what?" the Doctor asked again, still hung up on confusing timelines.

"I'm not supposed to tell you anything more," the Master explained as if talking to a two year old.

"And for once, you're listening to orders?" asked the Doctor incredulously, unlocking the TARDIS and stepping inside. "Really?"

"Yep. I promised." The Master let Amy enter first, then followed in behind her. He scanned the room, taking everything in, before his gaze landed on the console. "Oh, god. Dear Doctor, what in Pythia's name did you do to your console."

"I didn't do anything! She crashed, and fixed herself up like this."

The Master ignored him, and ran a hand over the edge. "What has the awful Doctor done to you, hey?"

The TARDIS hummed.

"Master!" the Doctor protested.

"I mean, what even is this?" he asked, pointing to some strange object on the console, pretending he didn't automatically see the structure running through the chaos. Yes, he knew where everything was and how it all works. Mostly. He might have trouble with some parts, but a TARDIS is still a TARDIS. The layout was still roughly the same, even though certain features were replaced with ancient typewriters, and dilapidated gramophone bells.

The TARDIS made a sound like she was laughing.

"I will not have my own ship make fun of me!"

"Doctor, I believe you are forgetting that you are more hers than she is yours."

"Still, I don't understand why she isn't reacting violently to you." The Doctor paced. "You were rather awful to her when you last met."

"You fused her coordinates at that time, too, and she still lets you run around and pretend you're in control. Also, she's a Type Forty Mark III, and is several hundreds of years old. I would think you'd learn not to question her anymore by now."

"I want to go home," Amy cut in.

The Doctor froze. "Okay."

Amy smiled. "No, not like that. I just, I just want to show you something. You're running from River. I'm running, too."


	3. The Vampires of Venice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of references to like, Classic Who n novels and stuff, but if you haven't seen them or read them it shouldn't be that big of a deal. Of all the stuff I'm referencing that isn't New Who, I've only actually seen the 1996 Doctor Who movie. The rest of the information I'm getting from wiki xoxo.

The Doctor began the takeoff sequence for Amy's time. The Master walked up to the console and flicked a switch.

The Doctor swatted his hand off. "Don't touch."

"This model of TARDIS is meant to have six pilots, Doctor. Six."

"Don't care. Shut up, sit down."

The Master made a face, but sat down next to Amy. After they landed in her time, he began to wander off into the TARDIS. Him, wander off into a living, possibly vengeful machine he personally tortured into a Paradox Machine? Yes, probably a bad idea. But if this TARDIS was anything like her sole pilot, then she was very old, and very kind. And hopefully, if she was still like the Doctor's previous incarnation, she would be forgiving. So overwhelmingly forgiving it hurt. So he wandered.

The first thing he came across was a shower. He decided to move on, and continued down the hall, only to find the exact same shower. He continued walking, but it was still the same shower over and over again. He took the hint, and showered, washing off dirt, dust, blood, and Dalek guts.

He wrapped himself up in a towel when he got out, grossed out by the thought of putting the same dirty clothes back on. The TARDIS seemed to agree, seeing as there was now a door to the Doctor's wardrobe just opposite the room he was in.

He was looking through the rows and rows and rows of clothing for at least something simple when he heard the Doctor's voice drift down the hall.

All that walking and he was still near enough the TARDIS doors he could hear the Doctor. Hm. He could also hear footsteps approaching. Oh, great.

The footsteps rounded the corner, and halted at the sight of the Master.

"What are you doing in my wardrobe? How did you get in here?" asked the Doctor.

"Your ship. She let me in here. Seemed rather adamant about it, too." The Master hummed and held up a bloodstained shirt with a large tear in the middle. "This?" He looked down. "Though, maybe not..."

He looked over at the Doctor, who had stopped talking, and was staring. "Doctor, I'm not going to get changed while you're standing right here. Shoo. I'll be out in a bit."

"Your chest..."

"Yes, I know, first time seeing me naked in centuries. Does it matter?"

"Yes. I mean, no. You're injured," worried the Doctor.

"Clearly." The Master turned away from him.

The Doctor took a step closer to the Master, and turned the Master's head to face him, examining his expressions. "You're not healing like you usually would. And you're malnourished."

"Do you want a prize for stating the obvious or something, Doctor? Seriously, scram," the Master ordered, wanting to turn away, but unable for some reason. It should be easy to, but it wasn't.

The Doctor leaned forward as if to kiss him, then took a large step back before their lips met. He grinned. "Got it." The Doctor bounded out of sight.

The Master took a moment to call the Doctor several filthy names, then finally picked out some clothing.

He changed, then took a step into the hall and spotted a first aid kit laying on the floor. It wasn't there before, and he figured the TARDIS would've put it elsewhere if she did decide he needed one. Which meant the Doctor most likely did it, as Amy wouldn't feel the need to go strewing first aid kits randomly around the place. Sentimental idiot.

The Master returned to where he had left his clothing, and repocketed the not-stone.

The Doctor had ran down to the library to find a book on Time Lord physiology, which was located in the section about amphibious life, for some reason. He wanted to help, but wasn't sure what to do.

When he had gone back to the wardrobe, the Master had gone. He tried the Control Room next, and there he was.

Black trousers, black button up shirt, red-orange loose, soft undershirt. Black button up shirt, and red-orange undershirt currently discarded over a bit of railing as the Master took care of cuts and bruises that hadn't healed for a very long time. He looked up as the Doctor entered. "Hello, Doctor."

The Doctor decided not to comment on his use of the first aid kit, as pointing out anything the Master perceived as a weakness, or as a unnecessary reliance would probably grant him another nosebleed.

"You kept the beard?"

"I thought you liked it."

"I despise it."

"Aw, that's too bad." The Master saw the Doctor look over the clothing he had set out, and added, "I found a crown back there, though. Wonder if I should go back and grab it?"

"Maybe later, your majesty."

The Master grinned. He had missed this.

The Doctor spun around and pointed at Amy. "You! Your fiancé. I need to talk to your fiancé."

"Why?"

"Because you tried to kiss me, that's why!" He looked over at the Master. "She kissed me. Is, is that alright? Is she alright?"

The Master sighed. "Doctor if I were to get angry over every person you kissed, half the human race might as well be dead. It's fine."

"...Noted." The Doctor turned to Amy. "He's at his stag night, yeah? Oh! Is he having one of those cake things? I love those. So I was thinking, maybe I pop out of the cake--"

"Doctor," the Master began, pulling on his undershirt down over his torso which had been covered in so many bandages he almost looked like an extra in a bad horror movie about mummies. "No." He slipped on the other shirt like a jacket and began buttoning it up to his throat. "As your friend, it is my duty to prevent you from disasters."

"Usually you cause the disasters--" began the Doctor.

"Shut up. Disasters of your own making," he corrected. "This would be one of them. Wait until his stag is over, then approach him and inform him of the situation in a kind way instead of embarrassing him in front of all his friends." The Master stood up, and brushed imaginary dust off the sleeves.

"Right, yes. Rory, after his stag night. What should I tell him, though?"

"Don't mention the kiss. Just... wait why do you want him anyways?"

"Honeymoon..?" the Doctor suggested weakly.

"Yes, then tell him that. You want to give him, and his fiancée a honeymoon."

The Doctor took off for a bit into the future, at the place Amy said Rory should be. He went out to find Rory, and tell him about the honeymoon, leaving Amy and the Master alone.

"I tried asking the Doctor if you two were together, but he wouldn't tell me. Are you?" Amy asked.

"Not in the conventional sense, no."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're thinking too... human. You're thinking live together, marry, have children, grow old together, die together, linear mush. You're thinking limited shared experiences in a tiny little section of this tiny little planet in a tiny little section of time."

"So you're saying you're above such petty matters of us humans?" asked Amy sarcastically.

"Obviously. Oh, that was rude wasn't it? Well, the thing is, we run."

"You run?"

"Yes."

He was saved from trying to explain properly in the limited language of English by the creaking of the TARDIS doors opening.

"How did finding the fiancé go?"

"Fine, fine, yeah," the Doctor said, apparently disappointed that he missed his chance to jump out of a cake.

"Right, um, what's it's name?"

"His name is Rory," Rory informed the Master sarcastically.

"Lovely. Hello Rory."

The Doctor launched into a colorful explanation of why he's giving them a honeymoon. At least halfway through his flowery speech, he began attempting repairs on his ship.

The Master sat by him, reading a pile of books, and making annotations on incorrect facts. He also brought a Type Forty TARDIS instruction manual. He didn't plan on reading it himself, but planned on chucking it at the Doctor's head if he ever did something horribly wrong to the workings of his ship.

He crossed out 'A Time Lord only has thirteen lives unless granted another set by the Council.' and wrote instead 'A Time Lord can live as many damn lives as they choose, as long as they are willing to be creative about it.'

'The date of the End of the Universe is unknown.' replaced with 'The End of the Universe is located a bit after the year one hundred trillion, but going there is not recommended. It's cold.'

'One should not meet their other selves. It creates a Paradox.' changed to 'It's alright to meet your other selves, the Universe can handle it. You might argue with yourself quite a bit, though.'

'Time capsules are not allowed to be removed from Gallifrey without explicit permission from...' 'Hahaha yeah right.'

The Doctor finally stopped talking about relationships being torn apart. Sometime during the course of his speech, he had walked up above the deck. "... Its a lot to take in, isn't it? Tiny box, huge room inside. What's that about? Let me explain."

"It's another dimension," Rory supplied.

The Master dropped his book. He hurried up the steps.

"It's basically another dimens...," the Doctor began. "What?"

The Master looked back and forth between Rory's bored expression, and the Doctor's affronted one. He laughed.

"After what happened with Prisoner Zero, I've been reading up on all the latest scientific theories," Rory explained. "FTL travel, parallel universes."

"Wow, Doc, you haven't gotten that kind of reaction since Grace, have you?" the Master snickered.

The Doctor started. "Hang on, you heard that?! You were in a completely separate part of the TARDIS when she said that."

"I was possessing a human, not entirely deaf."

"...Let's not talk about that." The Doctor looked away uneasily. "It was a bad experience for me. I died in surgery and the anesthetic nearly destroyed my regeneration. I nearly died for real."

"A bad experience for you?!" the Master hissed, "I got sucked into the Eye of Harmony!"

"And who's fault was that?"

The Master fell silent. It had been his, but there was no way in hell he'd admit it. He bared his teeth at the Doctor, who just raised an eyebrow at him, not impressed whatsoever.

The Doctor turned to Rory. "I like the bit when someone says it's bigger on the inside. I always look forward to that."

The Master recovered quickly. "Oh, my, Doctor! It's bigger on the inside!" he mocked. "It's almost like I've been surrounded by this technology since the cradle! It's so amazing, like our people were the ones to invent this very technology, this very concept! Fascinating!"

"Smartarse."

"Always, dear," the Master said, bowing, and blowing him a kiss.

"So, this date?" Amy asked, "Double date? What do you think, Rory?"

The Doctor seemed to forget his name wasn't Rory and suggested, "How about somewhere romantic?"

They took off and materialized in the middle of Venice, 1580. The travelers stepped out into a busy area of the city.

Looking around, the Master asked, "Doctor you realize the purpose of a Chameleon Circuit is to blend in, correct? Even one that insists on the shape of a 1960's police box?"

"She does what she wants, you know that," the Doctor told him, then launched into a speech on the history of Venice.

They were stopped by an inspector, anachronistically checking medical papers under instruction from a Signora Calvierri in case of the plague, which had died out years ago. The inspector was easily waved off with a flash of the Doctor's psychic paper, and they passed on further into the city.

They stopped by the House of Calvierri, watching as several girls dressed in white stepped out of the doors. They all wore veils, and carried white parasols. A man ran up to them, flipping their veils up, shouting for a girl named Isabella.

He seemed to find her, but was pushed to the ground by another one of the girls. The girls then continued to walk away.

"What was that about?" Amy looked to see the Doctor had vanished. "I hate it when he does that."

She and Rory headed off down a random direction, leaving the Master alone.

He wandered around the city, bored, inspecting the stonework. Doctor, disappeared. Amy and Rory, off exploring.

Suddenly a presence appeared in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. "Ah, hello signore," he said, adopting an attitude of someone flustered at the sight of someone clearly of high status. The safer route to go, really, if inaccurate. It was the attitude the other man might expect, so he went with it. "I'm sorry, I nearly bumped into you there."

"It's fine," the ornately dressed Calvierri boy said offhand. He turned and examined the Master more carefully, as if calculating how much of a threat he might be.

"Are you alright? You look troubled," the Master asked, figuring politeness would be the best way to handle this. It might make the boy take a liking to him, which could prove useful.

The boy paused. "I'm just... a long way from home, that's all."

"Me, too," the Master admitted. Building connections, relations, making the boy believe empathy was there, helping the boy to begin to care about this stranger, begin to feel empathy for the stranger. How do most sentient creatures fall for this so easily?

"You don't sound like it," the Calvierri boy said. The Master sent a silent thank you towards the TARDIS for her translation matrix. His Italian was rusty, relying on her translations, and she may have just saved his life.

"With the utmost respect, you don't look like it, signor," the Master remarked, returning the boy's critical stare.

Francesco smiled a tight-lipped smile like they had just shared a private secret, and walked off. The Master returned to where he had last seen the Doctor.

When he arrived, he found the Doctor and Amy babbling about vampires.

Amy turned to the Master and excitedly said, "We saw a vampire!"

"Vampire," he said, deadpan, hoping they wouldn't notice the cold fear trickling down his back.

"A real vampire, yeah!" she exclaimed.

"Vampire, Doctor? Vampire?" He fixed the Doctor with his gaze, trying to convey 'what the hell did you just get us into' as best he could without screaming.

"Bram Stoker style vampire, not Great Vampire. It's fine, I promise," the Doctor said, brushing him off.

"Dearest, I don't mean to be a downer, but anytime you say 'its fine, I promise' it makes me worry even more."

Rory sprinted up to the group and tried telling them what they already knew, but the Doctor and Amy both shut him down fast.

"Okay," the Doctor began, after cutting Rory off. "So, first we need to get back in there somehow."

"What?" Rory asked, not used to how the Doctor functions.

"How do we do that?" Amy asked, having learned how the Doctor usually approaches things by now.

"Back in where?" More confusion from Rory.

"Come and meet my new friend."

As they rushed to meet the Doctor's supposed new friend, the Master asked, "Have you ever, just once, considered walking away from a dangerous situation that will probably get us all killed?"

The Doctor just grinned at him in response, a tad bit maniacally.

Once introduced to the Doctor's new friend, they hid in his house, and were briefed on the structure of the House of Calvierri.

The Master sat by the table, precariously stacking tiny pebbles to create a model city as they discussed plans.

Amy suggested that she would pretend to be an applicant for the school, and let the rest of them into the school when night fell the next day. With several protests against her plan, they finally gave in. The discussion was not over, however, and they began the most inane argument over who should introduce Amy, and what their fake relation to her should be.

The Master had had enough. He stood up, and slammed his hands down on the table, knocking over his pebble utopia. "I'll do it! Rassilon, you need to stop arguing. It's giving me a headache. Listen, I have no idea how old I look by your terms. What should I introduce my relation to her as?"

"Brother, maybe?" the Doctor's friend suggested.

"Fine, then."

The Master sat over by the Doctor. He tried for a conversational tone so the humans wouldn't suspect anything, but he wasn't sure how well he pulled it off. "Doctor, if I don't return from the House of Calvierri, continue with the plan as usual," he instructed in Gallifreyan.

"Why the secrecy?" the Doctor replied, amused, in the same language.

"It would be irritating for them to worry."

"Why should they worry?" the Doctor asked, taking it more seriously.

"I have a bad feeling about this."

"They're similar to Vampires, of course you have a bad feeling about it."

"No, Doctor. It's not that. There's something I'm missing and it feels like something I should know. Something tastes tangy in the air, something about Time feels wrong, Doctor. There's something I can't account for coming, and I don't know what to do."

The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, but Amy cut him off. "Are you boys done yet? It's time for you to pretend to be my brother."

"Ready when you are, Amelia."

Approximately an hour later, they made it to the House of Calvierri.

"Signora, both of our parents have died, swept away by the plague," the Master lied. "This school is the only chance for my dear sister. Please."

"What is your name?" Signora Calvierri asked Amy.

"Amelia Maestro."

"And yours?"

"Vittore Maestro, signora."

"Vittore Maestro? A bold name."

"Our parents had high expectations for the both of us, signora, especially our dear mother." The Master had noticed the close bond between mother and son, and he decided to exploit that as much as possible. "She wanted for us to succeed in life, and I wish to honor her memory by helping my dear sister to do so."

"Have we met?" Francesco, the boy he had met earlier, asked.

"Yes, signore, we met a few hours ago."

"I wasn't talking to you."

"I, um--" Amy stammered.

"My sister was out looking for inspiration along the streets today, signore. She is an aspiring artist. Perhaps you saw her there?" the Master explained smoothly.

Francesco seemed to accept that easily. "Yes, it must be."

"Your story seems impressive, but how do I know you are what you say you are, hm?" Calvierri asked.

"Signora, they have references from His Majesty the King of Sweden," her steward Carlo explained, handing the Doctor's psychic paper over.

When she was handed the psychic paper, her smile hardened. She knew something. "Well, now I see what got the Steward so excited. What say you, Francesco? Do you like her?"

"Oh, I do, Mother. I do."

The Master fought an urge to run, and get Amy as far away from here as possible.

"Then we would be delighted to accept her."

The Master relaxed his shoulders, and smiled loosely, trying his best to seem like a proud brother happy for his sister. "Thank you, signora."

"Say goodbye to your sister."

"Tell Uncle Doctor I'll see you both really soon, okay? I'll be fine."

Amy was led off into a side corridor. The Master turned to leave, but Francesco crossed the room quickly, and grabbed his arm. "I would like a word with you."

"Signore?"

"I would like to learn more about you. This way, Vittore." Francesco moved down halls rapidly, and the Master memorized the way. He recognized the path from the map the Doctor's friend had shown. Unfortunately, the path led to the area assumed to be the dungeons. Go figure.

Francesco shoved him into a room, entered it, and closed and locked the door behind them.

"Signore?"

Francesco took ahold of the Master's shoulder, and shoved him down onto a chair, and strapped him down.

"What are you doing, signore?!"

"This won't hurt," Francesco began, and bit down on the Master's neck. It hurt.

After a moment, he staggered back, mouth full of red-orange blood. He spat it out. He looked at the Master in shock, horror, disgust.

The Master yawned, shifting his features from their earlier ignorant, fearful expression to one of sheer and utter boredom. "Oh, my," he droned. "What's that? Nonhuman blood? How could it be!"

"You're not human," panted Francesco.

"Really? News to me. I would've never guessed."

"That girl. She was human, I know she was. Is this psychic paper yours, then?"

"Oh, no. It's not. It belongs to a... friend of mine." Telling Francesco this wouldn't matter. His knowledge of it wouldn't see light of day. Or, rather, it would, but only once.

"Is he here?" Francesco demanded.

"Oh, how disappointing. I thought you really liked me. A shame, then." The Master examined his nails.

"What's a shame?" Francesco asked, still missing the obvious.

"This." The Master stood up, having undone all his bonds. He began to advance on Francesco, backing him up against a wall.

Francesco would usually lunge, attack, anything but he was weighted down by an oppressing, overwhelming fear smothering him. He felt absolutely powerless.

The Master hummed. "I suppose you want to run, don't you? Or are your feet too heavy, your heart too fast, bones too brittle. Can you even move, Francesco?"

"What are you?" he panted.

"I'm from Gallifrey. I'm a Time Lord."

"How? They're all dead."

"Oh, you know of Gallifrey don't you? I wonder if you know any of the legends."

"Who are you?"

"The legends of the renegades are my favorites. Do you know of the renegade children of Gallifrey?"

Francesco nodded shakily, hoping that answering his questions might persuade him to take away the psychic influence currently paralyzing him.

"How sweet. Well, I'll grant you this knowledge, consider it a parting gift before you go. I'm the Master, and my friend out there is the Doctor. In other words, you're dead meat, fishfood."

He walked the final steps forward, and heaved Francesco up off the floor. "Aw look at you. You're so pale! How about you go get some sun." The Master dragged him through the corridors, until he came across a large window opening out onto an alleyway, ground level. He shattered the window, considered throwing Francesco out for a moment. The Master eyed him, then shattered the perception filter device at his waist. Finally, he chucked Francesco out into the alley, where he exploded into dust upon contact with the sunlight.

The Master sighed, and slumped against the wall, exhausted. He was out of practice with that level of manipulation.

He had to keep moving, though. The Master really did not want to be a firsthand witness to Mother Calvierri's reaction to her son's death.

The shattered window seemed the simplest way out. He climbed cautiously over the shards of glass. When he was clear of them, he began to run unsteadily down to where they were supposed to meet up with Amy after their plan.

He made it to where the gondola was waiting for Rory, Amy, Isabella, and the Doctor to return. He fell against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment. "Hello," he slurred at the man in the gondola. "Are they in there?"

The man nodded in response.

"Cool."

He decided to wait for them to return. At least for a little bit. After a few minutes, the Doctor, Amy, and Rory all came sprinting out of the wooden door.

The Doctor tried to force it open to rescue Isabella too, but he received an electrical shock for his efforts.

The Master wearily turned to look at their group, but did a double take when he saw the Doctor slumped on the steps. He scrambled up to him and cradled him to his chest. He listened very carefully. "Both hearts functional. Breathing normal. He's just unconscious. Idiot."

"Both hearts?" Amy and Rory asked at the same moment.

"Oh... you do know we're not human, right?"

"Yes," Amy replied, at the same time Rory said, "No!"

"Well, fun fact. I'm not human, and neither is this idiot. Now let's move."

At some point during the gondola ride, the Doctor woke up. ... In the Master's lap, with his hair being petted. And was he... singing?

"Are you petting me?"

"Sleeping beauty's awake."

"Dear, how much blood did you lose? I haven't heard you sing in ages."

"Oh, I didn't lose too much blood, really. I just scared poor little Francesco a bit. Well, I say a bit. If I had more time to prepare theatrics I could've literally scared him to death."

The Doctor sat up. "I need to go pay a visit to Rosanna Calvierri."

"We literally just escaped there," Rory pointed out helpfully.

"I understand that, but I still need to talk to her."

They all looked to the gondola driver. "Fine..." he agreed.

They went to the throne room. The Doctor wanted to go in alone, but the Master refused to leave him. He was getting some of his energy back, he could still be useful.

The Doctor wanted to be as dramatic as possible, so he decided to sit on the throne. Of course. The Master sat on the floor next to the throne, half asleep, tuning in for some bits of the conversation.

"My turn. Where's Francesco?"

The Master shifted and opened his eyes. "He ran. I scared him, and he ran. Don't know where to, but I'm sure he'll turn up eventually," he lied. "Instinctual fear response."

"Why are you here?" the Doctor asked.

"We ran from the Silence. Where are you from?"

"Gallifrey. The Silence?"

The Master drifted off again. If it were important, the Doctor would tell him later. Or maybe not. Who knows.

"...What do you say?"

The Doctor stood up to answer her, brushing the Master's hand as he did. He took the hint and stood up as well.

"Oh, deserters must be executed. Any general will tell you that."

The Master's blood ran cold. He was still running from his fate, his sentence. All deserters must be executed all deserters must be executed all deserters must be-- oh, the Doctor's leaving. He shook his head and followed him out the doors.

They went back to the house. The Master fell asleep again, his body doing its best to heal. Of course, he didn't get to sleep for long, what with the scary fish ladies hovering outside the windows. He was practically shoved down the flight of stairs and out the door.

The Doctor tried to get back into the house after his friend went back in, but it was bolted shut. The Master took a second to get his bearings, then ran back to the Doctor. "Doctor, we need to move."

"No, let me in!"

"Doctor. No, really, we need to move. Now."

The Doctor finally caught on and backed away from the door quickly. A moment later, the house exploded, taking all of the vampire girls with it.

The sky blackened, taken over by sudden cloud formations.

Amy tried to lead the group back to Rosanna, but the Doctor ordered her and Rory back to the TARDIS, where they should be safe.

He turned to the Master, and tried to do the same, but he was shut down. "Doctor, I don't have anything if I don't have you. You're not doing this alone."

"If you insist."

In the throne room, the Doctor opened up the back panel of the chair, revealing wiring. Rosanna triumphantly waltzed in, telling the Doctor he was too late, more typical villain stuff, et cetera, et cetera. All things the Master has heard, and said before. He ignored their conversation and continued trying to figure out the device. He couldn't make heads nor tails of it.

At some point, Rosanna had stormed out, and Rory and Amy had returned, keeping up the age-old tradition of the Doctor's friends not listening to a damn thing he said.

The Doctor instructed them to essentially dismantle and destroy Rosanna's throne entirely. Amy, Rory, and the Master did that wonderfully. After wreaking havoc on the throne, they ran outside only to see the Doctor up at the top of the bell tower.

The Doctor flicked a tiny switch, and the machine shut off, and the skies cleared.

After climbing down, the Doctor ran out to his friends. He kissed the Master firmly, then pulled back and said, "Rosanna. I need to find Rosanna. Come along, Master." Then he ran off.

They found her by the canal where the deserter Isabella was executed.

"Rosanna!" the Doctor cried.

"One city to save an entire species. Was that so much to ask?"

"I told you, you can't go back and change time. You morn, but you live. I know, Rosanna. I did it."

"Tell me, Doctor. Can your conscious carry the weight of another dead race? Remember us. Dream of us." At that final command, Rosanna stepped into the water to be consumed by her sons.

"No!" the Doctor shouted, trying to reach for her, trying to save her. "No!"

He kneeled at the edge of the water for a minute. When he stood up, and walked on his way back to Amy and Rory, the Master was standing in his path.

"Doctor, the Time Lords are not a dead race." He wanted more than anything else to tell him he didn't destroy Gallifrey that day. That he saved his people. "They're not dead, because they live on in us. That history, their culture. We carry that. As long as at least one of us lives, the Time Lords are not a dead race. Gallifrey lives on." But he will have to learn on his own one day.

He laced his fingers behind the Doctor's neck and reached up for a kiss. How was he almost always shorter than the Doctor? Ridiculous, humiliating.

The Doctor kissed him back deeply, then pulled away. "Just checking, you don't mean like... repopulating, right?" he asked in a hushed voice.

The Master made a gagging noise. "No, dear god, no. Even if either of us were to ever regenerate as a female, no. Never. Also, don't you remember Pythia's curse? Time Lords are sterile, my dear Doctor. So even if we were to, well, children just wouldn't be an option under any circumstances."

"Okay, good. Just checking," the Doctor said with a sigh of relief. "Though, if you ever want a history lesson later on..."

"Was that supposed to be a pickup line?"

"Sort of."

"Well then it was 'sort of' a terrible one," he informed the Doctor, walking off back to where Amy and Rory were. "Might just take you up on that offer sometime anyways, though."

The Doctor dashed after him, and held his hand all the way back.

The Master was pleasantly surprised by Rory's decision to come along, yet deeply unnerved by the Silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey dudes please tell me if u would like me to make up a couple of my own plots or just keep doing AUs of episodes that'd be neat. Also it was kind of rushed at the end, sorry about that.


	4. Nurse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rory and the Master talk a bit it's chill.
> 
> Kind of a short chapter but I'm bad with being 100% sure on all that stuff.

The first thing Rory did when he entered the TARDIS after Venice was turn to the Master and say, "Let's get that bite looked at. The Doctor didn't look you over, so I'd assume there's not going to be any lasting affects, but you should get that checked out."

"Why?" the Master asked, painfully aware the Doctor was eavesdropping. Nosy bastard.

"You're hurt," Rory explained calmly.

"No, I mean, why should you bother helping?"

"I'm a nurse, and you're hurt," Rory elaborated. "It's what I do. Come on. I hope you know where the sickbay is, along with all the medical supplies, because these halls seem endless."

"Why do you assume there's an sickbay?" the Master asked, amused.

"There's a swimming pool in a library. Why wouldn't there be one?" he reasoned.

Thankfully, the TARDIS seemed to like Rory, and easily led them up the stairs and through the next two lefts.

Rory gazed at the domed ceiling, and across the wide room. "This place is huge."

"It's a a different dimension, why shouldn't it be?" the Master remarked, hiding a grin. "Also, the Doctor doesn't go in here often, so it's more or less 'factory setting.' The basic medical supplies should be over here." He sat down on a chair and began looking through the supplies.

"There's only that small section for medical supplies, in this huge room?"

The Master grabbed what appeared to be an alcohol swab, and began trying to clean up the dried blood on his neck. Rory took it from him and cleared up the areas he was missing. "Well, the rest of the equipment is for scans and replacing tissue and missing limbs and the like. I don't think the Doctor's ever used them."

Rory threw away the swab in a bin marked specifically for biowaste. "Is your blood supposed to be that color?" he wondered.

"Yes. Not human, remember?"

Rory hummed. "What other medical differences are there between your species and humans? I'm going to travel with you, and if you get hurt again, I'd need to know."

"Well, first off the Doctor and I are called Time Lords," the Master informed him seriously. "Well, that's not necessarily our species, more our rank. We're Gallifreyan. The last of."

"Noted."

"We have two hearts. Left and right side of the chest. We can survive temporarily with one out of action, but it hurts like hell. Our internal core temperature is lower than a human's. We're stronger, have better reflexes, stronger senses and all that most of the time. We can heal very fast most of the time. We have far longer lifespans, and appear to age slower to you. The Doctor is nine hundred and something, despite looking like an eight year old. If we're close to death, we can regenerate, which is a complete and utter mess and I don't want to get into right now. Respiratory bypass system, we can go without breathing for longer. Telepathic. Don't usually need to sleep or eat for long periods of time."

"Can you get sick?" asked Rory, covering all his bases.

"Not from anything originating on Earth, no."

"You keep on saying 'usually' with things. Are there any exceptions I should be concerned about?"

"Oh, well. That's a long story."

Rory shrugged, and pulled up another chair. "I'm very patient."

The Master paused a moment, wondering where to begin. "There was a War, and a lot of very bad things happened in that War. I have... made several dumb mistakes. Time Lords only get limited amounts of regenerations, and I managed to go through them all very quickly. I kept on finding ways to survive, but they all cost something, and didn't last long. I eventually died for real, once. Then I was resurrected for the War. At some point during the War, I came to the conclusion the War would never end unless someone did something unthinkable. So I ran, disguised myself as a human. Really not a recommendable experience. I was killed for real, again. I had found some musty old resurrection ritual, brought me back, but it went wrong. Very wrong. I mean I've had worse, but damn. Then I ended up imprisoned on Gallifrey for oh a century or so. I was finally released by a future version of your Doctor, which you mustn't tell him about, and I was stuck, trapped on a star cruiser for a few years. They figured out that leaving me alone for extended periods of time wouldn't kill me, so they left me alone. I got out, and now I'm here."

"Sounds like you've lived one hell of a life," Rory said at last after a long pause.

"A life of hell, sure," the Master snapped, then calmed down. "Go on. You should try to find your bedroom. The TARDIS likes you, she should show you the way."

Rory stood up, and began to walk out the door.

The Master took a deep breath. He unbuttoned his shirt, slipped it off, then tugged the undershirt off over his head, ignoring Rory's stare. The Master just wanted to check if anything had healed further.

"Can I ask--" Rory began.

"No."

"If you ever need help, just let me know," Rory offered.

The Master hummed noncommittally, and Rory left.


	5. Shimmer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking a while on this one y'all! Being original is Difficult™ also it's band camp lol
> 
> Missy mentioned her daughter only once but y'all can pry my love for her out of my cold dead hands.
> 
> Yes I do make a reference to The Time Machine(calling something a Morlock) in a Doctor Who fic. Why, you ask? Because The Time Machine was the very first piece of fiction to ever feature time travel and use the term "time machine", that's why.
> 
> Also when u picture Il'Kas, just imagine Aunt Beast from A Wrinkle In Time but with brightly colored feathers and several dexterous tails.
> 
> Wow look at me referencing two revolutionary(A Wrinkle In Time is in my eyes okay) science fiction novels in one go. Watch out I'm actually going to reference some colorguard/drum corps uniform stuff later on lmao.
> 
> Also Sollemne is Latin for festival/party btw

"Doctor!" the Master shouted, running up to the console room. "Look what I made." He held up a simple necklace for the Doctor to see.

"What is it?" asked the Doctor curiously.

"Where's Amy and Rory?" the Master wondered, switching topics instantly.

"Theyre sitting outside, I believe. We're parked in this beautiful garden in the--"

"Don't care, but thanks!" He pushed open the TARDIS doors. "Hey! Come look at this!"

"Always looking for an audience." the Doctor snarked behind him.

The Master spun around. "I heard that!"

Amy and Rory had been reading outside, wanting alone time to read without the Doctor reading aloud. Apparently alone time and reading also included some kissing, but the Master didn't really care about that. Pda wasn't a crime in this sector of the galaxy, if he remembered correctly. Also, none of his business.

They came back inside willingly, despite being rudely interrupted, setting their books down on the chair by the console.

Calmly, Rory asked, "What is it?"

"I made a shimmer!" the Master answered him, holding up the necklace. He was met with three identically confused faces, one for a different reason than the other two.

"Why?" the Doctor asked. "You don't need one. Shimmers are for aliens that don't pass as human. You look human already, and hate the Earth."

"Doctor. I'm a genius, bored, and I don't feel like destroying things right now. So instead of setting things on fire like I usually would, I build things, even if they're complete arbitrary nonsense."

"What's a shimmer?" Amy cut in.

"Watch." He held up the necklace, and dropped it over his head.

The Doctor rolled his eyes at the theatrics, but the two humans reacted nicely.

The Master's face had changed. Now standing before them was an entirely different man. His clothing was the same as they were without the shimmer, but that was where the similarities ended. Dark, messy hair. Ice blue eyes that looked as if they're boring a hole straight through anything they see. The sort of face teachers see and label as a troublemaker, but children see and label as friendly. A slight playful smile, seemingly a permanent quirk fixed on his lips.

He took a few quick steps forward, straightened the Doctor's bow tie. "Shimmer," he informed the Doctor redundantly.

Amy whistled approvingly, then asked, "Did you steal the Doctor's eyebrows, though?"

He paused a moment, considering. "Yes, I do think so. I mean, how else could we explain the clear lack of facial hair he has? I must have stolen it."

The Doctor sighed as if he were dealing with a particularly annoying, energetic child. "Master, why are you doing this?"

"I told you. Bored genius." He turned his back on the Doctor, stepping away from him. "Amy, Rory, what do you think?"

"Hot," Amy replied, at the same time Rory asked, "How does it work?"

He bowed to Amy theatrically, then told Rory, "Perception filter. Works like the Saturnyns' except I'm not secretly a scary space fish lady." He slipped the necklace off. "I'm just a handsome man." He put it back on. "Disguised as another handsome man."

The Doctor cleared his throat uncomfortably. "So, why did you want to show us?"

"I was thinking--"

"Oh no."

"Hush. I was thinking maybe we could go for a test run?" he suggested, grinning.

"A test run," the Doctor repeated, deadpan.

"Exactly," the Master agreed. "Maybe we could go to Sollemne?"

"What's Sollemne?" The Doctor frowned in confusion. "I've never been there before."

"Oh, it's nowhere, really," the Master assured him, "It isn't a part of a large empire, it doesn't have any particularly notable achievements, it doesn't have any breathtaking sights of nature, or architectural marvels. Which overall makes it far too boring by your standards."

"Sounds harmless enough," Rory, being incredibly optimistic, said.

"I still don't know where it is. What are the coordinates?" the Doctor asked, moving over to the scanner.

"I have a better idea, actually. How about I fly her?"

The Doctor looked mildly terrified. "No. Absolutely not."

"Why? Afraid I'm going to fly her better than you can?" he teased, stepping far too close into the Doctor's personal space.

"No, it's not that," the Doctor protested weakly, backing away. "It's just--"

"Let him do it," Amy requested. She really wanted to see how this turned out. "Please?"

The Doctor huffed, considering it for a few moments. "Fine," he bit out, unable as ever to say no to her.

"Your console is a mess, dear."

"Shut up and get on with it."

"As you wish." He spun around the console, flicking switches and pressing buttons, slower, but far more precise and methodical than the Doctor usually flew. He threw a lever, then stepped back, waiting for something to happen. When nothing happened he looked at the Doctor in confusion.

The Doctor smiled, and picked up a hammer, giving the console a good whack, and his TARDIS instantly dematerialized.

The Master was speechless for a moment, then muttered, "Old eccentric machine." He spun to face the Doctor and asked, "When was the last time you did actual, proper, basic maintenance other than randomly experimenting with the wiring and hitting things?"

The Doctor began counting on his fingers, but the Master shook his head. "Forget it, I don't actually want to know."

The TARDIS landed with a thud, and the Master rushed over to the doors. "Right, okay. So! Rules: before we step out that door, please kindly remove any valuables off your person and leave them on the ship if you ever want to see them again."

"Rules?!" the Doctor spluttered. "My ship, my rules!"

"Fine. If you enjoy losing your belongings and your dignity, be my guest. You can open the doors by snapping, yes?"

"Yes," the Doctor grumbled.

"Showoff. So it's probably best to leave TARDIS keys behind as well."

He opened the doors out onto a busy street fair. "Welcome to Sollemne!"

People rushed around, chattering in various languages going too fast and too varied for the TARDIS to translate each one. Aliens of all shapes and sizes moving about through the street, a shocking wave of colors and sounds. Chains of paper lanterns were strung from building to building, musicians were laughing and playing in assorted clusters, their music overlapping and filling the space.

A little girl with bioluminescent hair, absolutely covered in smears of paint, ran up to the group. "Flowers?" she offered, holding up a bouquet of unfamiliar flowers to them.

"Thank you. Would you like me to...?" he asked, then trailed off, gesturing to her hair.

She grinned and nodded.

He sat down behind her and began to braid her hair. "Quit staring," he instructed. "They pay through services or trading objects here. There's actually one place where you can pay for dinner with a good snog."

"I don't even want to ask how you learned that," the Doctor complained.

"I figure it's fairly self explanatory. The cook has three tongues and is a bit handsy, but she's alright," the Master elaborated, borrowing a hair tie from Amy to finish the braid.

He tapped the girl's shoulder to let her know he was done, and she smeared some paint on his cheek, then ran off into the crowd once more.

"Please," the Doctor groaned, "stop with the details."

"Suit yourself." The Master shrugged, standing up. "Well, if you're jealous, don't worry about it." His face lit up with excitement as if he had remembered something. "Oh! I'm going to go try and find some old friends. Don't wait up!" He disappeared effortlessly into the crowd.

When they finally saw the Master again, he was in a fight. Naturally. The Doctor hovered nervously around the ring of people gathered to watch. His opponent knocked him off his feet with a sweep of one of her many tails, and the Master was down for the count. An official with far too many eyes, an Argus most likely, counted out five rels, then declared the other the winner. Victorious, the creature helped the Master to his feet. The Doctor was surprised to see the Master smiling and laughing, and not angry whatsoever for losing.

He looked up and waved at the Doctor, Amy, and Rory. They weaved their way through the crowd over to him. The Master was still standing by the creature that had beat him. "This is Il'Kas! She's an old friend of mine."

Il'Kas had brightly colored feathers, four arms, and no eyes whatsoever. Her head swiveled around as if she was following their body heat. "Hello," she greeted sweetly.

"Il'Kas, this is Amy, this is Rory, and this... this is the Doctor."

"Ah. I understand."

"May we share dinner with you tonight?"

"If you tell me a story."

"Deal."

The home of Il'Kas was on a small rambling street, coming just off the main road. The house was cramped, but cosy. They sat in mismatched lumpy chairs of various shapes and sizes, all grouped together around an worn, old wooden table. The meal was quite frankly unidentifiable, but good nonetheless.

The tradition, or maybe just a habit of Il'Kas', was that each guest should each tell a story, made up, or true, it didn't particularly matter.

It should probably be made known that Il'Kas was a common name in this sector of this galaxy. In fact, this Il'Kas lived right next door to another Il'Kas, who was a vegetarian Morlock. It had said it was okay with being simply called "the vegetarian Morlock" however, as that was more of an identifying trait than its name.

Rory went first in the storytelling, and he told a story of one of his patients, who was an artist. She had broken her arm, but decided to improver her painting using her other arm, by going around the hospital, and painting butterflies on the casts of those who needed them. She had cheered up many people with that, and he remembered that story fondly.

The Doctor told a story of a library with living shadows, but refused to tell the end of the story because he "always hates the endings."

Amy told the story of her best friend, who stole a bus one day, and was always getting into trouble.

"You already know all my stories, Il'Kas," the Master sighed.

"No, I don't, Koschei. You're older than the last time we met, and you have a new voice. Stories are always worth retelling with a new voice."

"I've had several different voices since we last met." He hesitated. "Is this one okay?"

"You sound tired, but you sound alive, which is better than some days."

"That's true. Okay. Once, there was a girl made of fire and ice. She could be as gentle as a breeze, or as harsh as a winter storm. She was innocent to the world, and people hated her for that. They tried to break her, this girl made of glass, but she proved to be too strong for them. Her face changed over the years, but she never left her planet. She was a strong warrior, a fierce lover, a kind daughter. She heard stories of lands beyond her own planet, and she wished to journey past it's barriers like her father had, but she still waited, like he had. Waited for her time to leave. When it finally was time to leave, the universe had erupted into chaos, it was being torn apart by a monstrous War raging across the centuries. She joined the fight, flying across the cosmos with her fire and ice, protecting the innocents with all her rage and love. She was a hero to many. One day, she fought against the ultimate Evil, the terrible machines of darkness that tore reality to pieces. Throughout her travels, she was forced to witness her people fight that ultimate Evil for so long they began to resemble the terrible machines themselves. That realization broke her crystal heart, and she begged her father to leave the War, leave the fighting, run away and never look back. He took a moment to consider her words, her warnings not to become like the metal machines like their people had, and he smiled sadly, because he knew he could not leave, he must not leave. She shed a single tear, and fought by his side for the final time that day, when the metal machines took the Cruciform. She was struck down in that horrible battle, and she died that day, amidst the putrid remains of War. He tried to stay fighting, but he didn't know why he was anymore. The day after, or perhaps centuries later, her father's friend faced a terrible choice, and her father realized he no longer knew his people from the terrible, terrible machines that had killed her. She was right and he had been too late to listen. So he ran. He ran far, far away, but he didn't run far enough. It was impossible to run far enough from the nameless man."

Il'Kas trilled after a moment of silence, "I can never tell if your stories are made up, or if they're just overly fanciful versions of the truth."

"Isn't that how all good stories are, though?" he teased.

"Now, I shall tell a story of my own."

"You're the host, you don't have to."

"I like telling stories. It is a story about you."

The Master groaned, covering his face with his hands. "All you have are embarrassing stories about me."

"The best kind."

Everyone at the table leaned forward to hear better. Amy and Rory, because they didn't know much about him. The Doctor, because he likes to think he knows a lot about him, but really has several hundreds of gaps of years they haven't seen each other.

"So, when we first met, he was very young."

"I was two hundred years old," the Master interjected.

"Small, young, for his people at least," she amended. "Children of Gallifrey, They Who Walk In Shadows are like trees: old, living pillars that hold the Fabric of the Universe together. Hundreds of years pass like the blink of an eye to them. Not so much for this one. He had much to learn about patience, and how the Universe works and the songs she sings.

Il'Kas continued, "She sings very lovely songs, but he could only hear them some of the time, and only some of the songs." She turned to face Amy. "Do you hear the songs?"

Amy shook her head in confusion. "No, I don't."

"And you?" She swiveled her head towards Rory.

"No, but one of my patients, well, she's in hospice, but she talks about things singing."

"You. Son of Gallifrey. You know. What is your favorite song?"

"Snow," the Doctor blurted out, "The song that sings in snow, or the song of stars on a clear night."

"Did you know black holes sing, too?  
And supernovas?" Il'Kas asked coyly, almost as if she were testing him.

The Doctor scoffed. "That's impossible. Those are just destruction."

"The Universe doesn't know the meaning of your 'impossible'," she admonished. "But anyways, the story. His ship landed here, all smoking and steaming. It crushed my flowers."

"Sorry."

"You've apologized several times already. It is fine. He stumbled out of the machine and stumbled over. He fell onto his knees and exhaled some sort of energy, and immediately fell asleep."

"Regeneration?"

"Yes."

"You regenerated at only two hundred?" the Doctor asked in a hushed voice. Almost as if he was concerned for him, but the Master brushed off that thought instantly. Yeah, right. As if.

"Shut up."

"What happened?"

"Does it matter?"

"It matters to me."

For someone with only slight indentations for facial features, Il'Kas managed to portray being amused flawlessly.

"Anyways, I brought him into my home and tried to help him best as I could without knowing his species or even his name. Do you know what the first thing he did when he woke up was? He ran right out of the house. The first thing he did when he regained consciousness was run. Now, I didn't know as much about regeneration as I do now, but I figured some scrawny little kid shouldn't be running about with energy older than most galaxies bouncing about in his system, so I ran after the child, picked him up and held him tight until he seemed to calm down. Once he was finally civil, he explained the whole situation."

"What had happened to him?" the Doctor asked in his 'if you tell me what's wrong I can fix it instantly with a sonic screwdriver and a clever plan' voice.

"Oh, that's his story, not mine. Koschei stayed on this planet for a while after that whole incident and we became close."

"Why do you call him Koschei?"

"That's what she knows me as, Doctor."

"She--," the Doctor began to ask. "Oh. So this was... before Ailla?"

The Master's expression grew frigid. "Yes."

"Who's Ailla? Is she a girl you fancied?" Amy teased.

"She is a story I don't like to tell."

"Oh, I have plenty of those," said Amy conspiratorially. "There was this one boy when I was five years old..." Rory rolled his eyes, but fondly listened to her story anyways, being the good fiancé he is.

A few hours of ridiculous stories later, and they were on their way back to the TARDIS. The Doctor was uncharacteristically quiet the whole walk.

Amy and Rory went up to their room, with a yawn and a "goodnight."

Once they were out of sight, the Doctor turned on the Master. "Why are you doing this?" he seethed.

"What do you mean?" the Master asked, caught off guard by the Doctor's sudden anger.

"The face, the mannerisms, why?" the Doctor demanded.

"Just fun," the Master explained, bewildered. "What's the issue with it?" he challenged.

"Fun? You wearing your first face again, down to every exact detail is fun for you?"

"If it bothered you, you should've said something," the Master offered, lowering his voice. He took off the necklace, and shoved it in his pocket.

"No, no. Forget it. I'm fine," the Doctor tried to storm off, stopped by the Master's hand resting gently on his shoulder.

The Doctor turned around to face the Master, seeming to crumple under his words. "Talk to me, please."

"It reminds me of the past, and I hate talking about the past," the Doctor admitted. "It's a reminder of all of the bad things that have happened. I can't think of the past without thinking of all the people I've hurt, left behind, or, or failed. I failed you. I failed that face. I broke our pact. I hurt you, and I hate thinking about that hurt. How can you handle looking at the past?"

"I forgive you."

"You what?" the Doctor faltered, taking a step back in disbelief.

"You know what I said. I forgive you, and that's how I can look back."

The Doctor laughed a little hysterically. "What happened to you?"

"Your future. You didn't say a thing, but your eyes... Oh, your eyes..."

"I won't let anything happen to you," the Doctor insisted.

The Master laughed, then covered his mouth. "Oh, that's rude isn't it."

"I'm serious!" the Doctor protested, waving his hands about.

The Master grabbed his hands and pulled them close. "I know, but don't. Just don't. I'd ask you to promise not to do anything, but I don't know what I'd have to get you to promise, and I know you wouldn't keep it anyways."

The Doctor smiled, yet the Master had no idea why.

The Doctor shuffled his feet as if embarrassed of what he was going to say next. "Sleep together tonight?"

The Master dropped the Doctor's hands. "You're kidding, right? If you think I'm so much of an idiot as to seriously--"

The Doctor reprocessed his original request, then backtracked at the speed of light. "No! No, no, no, no, no. I didn't mean like that, and I don't think you're an idiot, I think you're brilliant! I just meant... next to each other, if you want."

The Master stood impassive a moment before rolling his eyes and saying, "You're a hopeless romantic."

"Is that a yes...?"

"Yes." He smirked jostling the Doctor's shoulder as he walked past. The Master moved to his bedroom to place the flower the little girl had given him up on a shelf, and change out of the clothes he was wearing during the day. He wandered back to the Doctor's room, and slept soundly for the first time in years.

The next morning, Amy found the Doctor's bedroom door slightly ajar, and she curiously pushed it open a bit more. Upon finding the Doctor and the Master cuddled up together, a tangled mess of intertwined limbs, she took several pictures, then called out, "Wake up sleepyheads!"

Their matching messy hair and startled expressions were definitely worth the Doctor's later extensive lecture on respecting the privacy of others, Amy decided.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continues to reference The Dark Path despite having never read it cause it's out of print and from the time of fuckin dinosaurs aka I can't find an electronic copy.
> 
> Basic (lol don't trust me whenever I say "basic") summary: The Dark Path was set when the Master still went by his school nickname, Koschei. He thought Ailla was a 28th century human he rescued and was traveling with(I think it's implied that he loved her), but she was actually a Time Lady sent to spy on him cause the Time Lords were like "lol okay is this guy stable or is he gonna try to destroy the universe lmao......." Well congrats Time Lords u fucked up and made him unstable and trying to destroy the universe.
> 
> He found this weapon that he's like "holy shit man this could control the universe we could fix all the bad things" and the Doctor's there I forgot why he was there tbh but the Master's like "dude we could fix bad things w this we could use this for good" and I think the Doctor goes on abt some reason they shouldn't idk
> 
> Or, pardon me, the actual quote of the Master's is "Just imagine it for a moment. No one need ever be murdered, raped or robbed; no one need ever feel the pain of loss or betrayal, because the cosmos is a cohesive society governed by a single rule - ours."
> 
> The Master is in the control room for the weapon and he hears Ailla come into the room but he doesn't realize it's her so he shoots her and is rlly upset abt that cause he thinks she's dead. Her body gets moved to his TARDIS for some reason, and she regenerates there. He realizes he could use the machine to bring Ailla back to life, but he has to distract some dudes first, so he convinces this guy to destroy a planet using the weapon to distract them, but then he goes back to the TARDIS to continue working on figuring out how to resurrect her only to see a recently regenerated Time Lady standing next to the Doctor. So now he's feeling betrayed bc the Doctor didn't tell him jack shit abt Ailla being a Time Lady, and he's getting basically grief whiplash like grieving her death to oh shit no nvm she's alive, his hearts r fuckin shattered, he just destroying an entire planet for no goddamn reason, and at some point the weapon fucks up and collapses into a black hole, and he's stuck in his TARDIS at the very center of the black hole, stuck with all this awful feeling emotions, until he manages to escape somehow(never elaborated on I don't think. It's just "he's the master don't question it")
> 
> And he has like some event where someone calls him Koschei and he's like "that name has no more meaning to me. I am the Master."
> 
> Okay I looked it up the actual quote is "That name no longer has any meaning for me Doctor. In time you too will call me Master."
> 
> Also another rad quote of his is: "Sometimes, Miss Waterfield, one must compromise and accept the existence of a lesser evil for the greater good. I gave you the knowledge to destroy Terileptus, and don't think I don't hear every voice screaming, but I'm adaptable."
> 
> So yea um


	6. Amy’s Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there’s a very very brief mention of self harm and attempted suicide in this chapter
> 
>  
> 
> “In the end he deemed it would be best to send a lying dream to King Agamemnon; so he called one to him and said to it, ‘Lying Dream, go to the ships of the Achaeans, into the tent of Agamemnon, and say to him word for word as I now bid you. Tell him to get the Achaeans instantly under arms, for he shall take Troy. There are no longer divided counsels among the gods; Juno has brought them to her own mind, and woe betides the Trojans.’
> 
> “The dream went when it had heard its message, and soon reached the ships of the Achaeans. It sought Agamemnon son of Atreus and found him in his tent, wrapped in a profound slumber. It hovered over his head in the likeness of Nestor, son of Neleus, whom Agamemnon honoured above all his councillors, and said:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY IM NOT DEAD MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA  
> sorry I just had marching season and now that marching season is over I’ve got fuckin finals next week so procrastination is clinging to my every thought  
> I missed writing this story. Anyways! I should probably go study (or work on the next chapter lmao)  
> I hope y’all are having a nice time!
> 
> If y’all need to study for finals, I guess this is when I should shame u for not studying right now, but hey that would be incredibly hypocritical of me seeing as I’m posting this when I need to be studying

-Leadworth-

The TARDIS materialized. The Master didn't know where he was. He didn't know why... oh, yeah, they were just going to... wait, where were they going?

The Doctor strode out of the TARDIS to greet... Rory, wearing a pony tail. Strange.

The Master looked down. He was wearing a suit. Why was he wearing a suit? Wait, yeah, he went back to wearing suits after... what?

Confused, but with his brain filling in background information the instant he thought about it, he stepped out of the TARDIS.

Amy was there, pregnant, the size of a small moon, really. Wait, when did she and Rory leave the TARDIS? Just after the... hm.

He blinked and they were walking through a street. He didn't remember walking that way, but his brain tried to fill in the gap anyways. Right, they left because... they went for a walk that's right.

The Doctor continued holding conversation with Amy and Rory, but the Master was scrutinizing the scenery as they walked through. Would it be cliche to call it too quiet? Yes, but it really was too damn quiet.

Birds? Yes, the birds. There were none, yet he heard birdsong. All the elderly watched them suspiciously from their homes.

No, all of this made sense. It had to make sense, obviously. Amy and Rory left the TARDIS one day, because they wanted to settle down together. They arrived here, because the Doctor intended to go to that planet made entirely out of shrubs, but must have entered a coordinate wrong. They went for a walk from Amy and Rory's cottage, because old friends catching up go on walks together, and that's what they are. Old friends. But why did it feel wrong?

"Are you alright?" the Doctor asked, peering over at him.

"Yeah, yeah, fine. Just a headache, that's all," the Master said in a tone he hoped conveyed 'leave it alone'.

Amy, the Doctor, and Rory all sat down on a bench by the street. The birdsong grew louder, nearly making it hard to even think. The Master stayed standing, watching, because something was wrong, he just didn't know what.

"Oh blimey! My head's a bit, ooh," the Doctor groaned, pressing a hand up to his head. "Uh, no, you're right there wasn't a lot of time for birdsong back in the good... old..."

The Master slumped down next to the bench, his eyes drifting shut despite all his efforts to keep them open as the birdsong droned loudly in his ears. "Doc—“

-TARDIS-

First sight: TARDIS interior, TARDIS floor, specifically.

"—tor. What. What?"

"Days. What? No, yes, sorry, what?" The Doctor bounced up off the floor at Amy and Rory's entrance, babbling on about terrible dreams. He was distracted by some lights on the console flashing and beeping.

"Now, what's wrong with the console? Red flashing lights, what do they mean?" he looked over to the Master, who hadn't stood up yet, opting instead for sitting on the floor.

The Master shrugged.

"You passed your flight test, tell me," the Doctor demanded, as if ordering him to obey would make the knowledge appear to him.

"I slept through the 'flashing lights' part of class."

The Doctor sighed. "Did you sleep through all your classes?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Didn't like the teachers. And you kept on distracting me whenever I actually was awake." He stood up and walked over to where the Doctor was worrying over his console. "I'd assume they mean something bad, though? Or a party. At least it's not mauve."

"Thanks," the Doctor remarked sarcastically, "Very helpful."

Rory brought their attention back to the dreams. Turns out he had the same one, and so did Amy.

"We're back to reality now," the Doctor declared, his statement immediately proven unlikely by the same birdsong from the earlier dream replaying.

"Doctor? If we're back to reality, how come I can still hear birds?" Amy asked, raising her voice to be heard over the noise.

"Yeah, the same birds," Rory pointed out. "The same ones we heard in the—“

-Time War-

First sight: rubble and ruin. 

The Master coughed, sitting up as much as he could while still remaining behind the cover provided by the crumbled walls of the ruined building. He looked around rapidly, relaxing far more than he would like to admit when he spotted the Doctor, blinking away sleep nearby him.

"What's going on?" the Doctor mumbled.

"I presume you had the same dreams as well?" the Master asked, peering over the wall, scanning the immediate area for Dalek patrols.

The Doctor tensed up, ready to run. "Do you think the dreams are caused by some plot of the Daleks?" he theorized.

"Since when did Daleks use birdsong, though?"

"They have the Skaro Degradation now," the Doctor pointed out. "Who knows what those monstrosities get up to?"

The Master hummed. "Fair point." A flash of color and movement caught his eye. "Oh, look. There's a couple humans over there... poor bastards."

"Hang on... aren't those the...," the Doctor hesitantly began.

"Humans from the dream?" the Master finished.

The Doctor slid out from their cover and began sprinting over to the only two other beings in sight that weren't dead or Dalek. Well, they might even be Dalek. After all, they were getting rather inventive these past couple centuries.

"What are you doing?!" the Master hissed, but after a moment's hesitation, he darted after the Doctor.

"Hello!" the Doctor greeted, hopping down from a rubble pile. "You're going to get killed if you stay out in the open like this! Come with me."

"You're—you're—," the man, Rory, if the dream was accurate, stammered.

"Great," the Master said exasperatedly, climbing down to them. "It was a shared dream, then?"

The woman named Amelia raised her gun at the Doctor. "That was either Time Lord nonsense, or Dalek, and the next thing I see after waking up is you two. Now, the only creature stupid enough not to carry a weapon in this War must be another arrogant Time Lord just begging to lose a regeneration, so what did you do to us? Explain!"

The Doctor stammered, raising his hands in an attempt to convey he meant no harm.

The Master raised his gun calmly at Amy, which earned him an eye roll from the Doctor. "Put the gun down, and explain what the hell you did to us. Whichever order you like."

"Lower your weapon or I'll shoot!" Amy threatened him, keeping her gun trained on the Doctor.

The nurse, or maybe doctor, depending on the dream, stepped up, holding a modified energy rifle, with a bayonet affixed to the end, perhaps for simply stabbing things when blaster fire was out of the question. He pointed it at the Master with shaking hands. "Don't shoot her." The kid had probably never shot at something human-shaped in his whole life.

The Doctor turned his attention to him. "Master, drop your gun." At the Master's incredulous snort, the Doctor explained, "She's frightened, can't you see? You're not helping things."

The Master didn't move. "She’s frightened? I’m frightened! The only things I've seen in the past few centuries that aren't terrified out of their wits are Daleks whenever you're not in the room, or dead."

"Please," the Doctor requested.

He glared at the offending human. "Fine," he snapped, holstering his gun.

Rory lowered his rifle with a sigh of relief. "Amy, please," he begged, attempting to save her conscience from killing a possibly reasonable person. Trying a different angle, he added, "We need him alive to figure out that, that dream thing, whatever it was."

Amy looked at him for a while, deciding. She lowered her gun.

"Thanks for that," the Doctor exclaimed, straightening his bow tie. "Regeneration would be very counterproductive at this point, and it would make quite the beacon for any creature this side of the planet."

"We need to get to cover," Rory insisted, looking around anxiously.

"We can go to my TARDIS!" the Doctor suggested, then hesitated. "Wait... where is my TARDIS? Where's yours?"

"Parked right next to yours, idiot."

"Do you remember where that is?"

"No, do you?"

"You've misplaced your time ships," Rory noted, deadpan.

"Possibly," the Doctor remarked.

"Temporary setback, really," the Master added.

"Just look for a blue box and a... what's yours disguised as currently?"

"An ionic column. No point in the damn chameleon circuit now."

"Two Time Lords that have misplaced their time capsules, and one isn't even armed. What's even the point of you, then?" Amelia demanded.

"Well, working eyes to know we need to get the hell out of here now, for one," the Master said, pointing at several moving objects headed their way.

Amy raised her gun to fire at the slowly but steadily approaching Dalek patrol, but the Doctor stepped forward, and pushed her gun down, and away from the Daleks. "Do you really want to draw attention to yourself?" the Doctor hissed.

"Fair point," she admitted. "Run?"

"Run!" the Doctor agreed.

They all took off for the nearest semblance of any shelter, which happened to be the half-collapsed building the Doctor and the Master had been hiding out in earlier.

They began to hear birdsong again.

Amy's eyes widened with fear. "You stop this, Time Lord scum, you stop this right now!" Amy threatened, as her eyes drifted shut.

"I'm not—“

-Leadworth-

"— doing anything," the Doctor finished, startling awake still sitting on the bench in Leadworth.

"Oh! Sorry, nodded off, stupid. God I must be overdoing it," Rory observed. "I was dreaming... Wait what was that dream?"

"The Time War," the Doctor supplied grimly.

"So we all just had the same dream again, yeah?" Amy clarified.

"Doctor, what is going on?" Rory asked impatiently.

"Is this because of you?" Amy accused, "Is this some Time Lordy thing because you two have shown up again?"

The Master was still sitting on the ground next to the bench, hands curled into fists to keep from shaking with fear. "Get your apes under control, Doctor. I swear, you used to have better taste."

"Doesn't look like it from here," the Doctor noted.

"I don't mean me! Of course I'd be worse," the Master admitted, incredulous the Doctor would think he meant himself. "But your pets used to be of better quality. I mean if you get Donna and Jamie again you have a red-headed Scot team. Though, neither remember you. Damn. Bring back Martha and you have someone with medical experience to replace the nurse. Hell, bring back a Romana and you wouldn't even need me anymore. Another person to be the Last of the Time Lords with you instead of me. Someone you like better, too, wouldn't that be nice?"

"Shut up!" the Doctor ordered, "Shut up right now! You don't have the right to talk about them like that."

"Sorry, sorry, I just—" He sighed. "Scared. Time War. I thought I escaped, but what if this and the TARDIS are just dreams?"

The Doctor didn't answer him. He looked cautiously around himself. "Listen to me. Trust nothing. From now on, trust nothing you see, hear, or feel."

“Great,” the Master muttered.

"But we're awake now," Rory protested.

"Yeah, you thought you were awake on the TARDIS and in the War, too."

"But we're home," Amy insisted.

"Yeah, you're home. You're also dreaming. Trouble is, Rory, Amy, Master, which is which? Are we flashing forwards, backwards, or, well..."

"Sideways," the Master supplied.

"Yeah, sideways. Hold on tight. This is going to be a tricky one."

"Can you cut it with the theatrics?" the Master groaned. "It's bad enough—“

-Time War-

"—Already." He looked around at the incredibly War-torn surroundings. "Damn it!"

"I knew you in that dream. Why did I know you?" Amy asked suspiciously.

"Don't know, never seen you before in my life," the Master replied evenly, biting back cuss words in a thousand languages.

Rory suggested, "Or, this could be just a dream, and we've forgotten each other."

"No, this one is real," Amy declared.

"I have to agree with her," the Master said, tapping the wall anxiously, "Nothing escapes a Time Lock, nothing escapes a Time War, so those other dreams are impossible possibilities."

"Come on, can't you show some optimism?" the Doctor asked, and was replied with a withering glare.

A drowsy blink, and they were back in the TARDIS.

-TARDIS-

A vworping, ringing sound echoed through the TARDIS, backed up by the lurching, wheezing sound of her brakes.

"Oh, this is bad! I don't like this!" the Doctor exclaimed, kicking the console.

The Master groaned, and leaned up against the railing.

"Quit complaining!" the Doctor complained.

The Master covered his eyes with his hand. "I just forgot how nauseating the Time War was.”

"Just try not to think about it," the Doctor advised.

"Gee thanks," said the Master sarcastically, "You're a great doctor, Doctor."

"Okay, but, whatever's wrong with the TARDIS, is that what caused us to dream about those things?" Rory asked, trying to intervene before they devolved into a petty, childish argument. They were good at that.

"If we were dreaming," the Doctor reasoned.

"Of course we were," Amy insisted. "I've never fought in a Time War, and I'm not pregnant!"

"And you thought you were awake in those dreams," the Doctor reminded them. "This could be the dream. I told you. Trust nothing we see or hear or feel. Look around you. Examine everything. Look for all the details that don't ring true."

Rory was quick to point out that their case of traveling in a spaceship that's bigger on the inside than the outside made it a bit hard to find what rings true.

"Valid point," the Doctor admitted.

All at once, the lights around the TARDIS shut off, with a sound effect reminiscent of getting shot in a game of laser tag. Only a faint glow from the console remained.

"It's dead," the Doctor whispered, his voice echoing. "We're in a dead time machine."

"She can't be dead, though," insisted the Master, a tiny bit panicked. "TARDISes don't just up and die like that. She can't be dead."

"Dead in a manner of speaking. Probably," the Doctor agreed, fidgeting with his hands.

"'In a manner of speaking'? 'Probably'? Doctor, she can't be dead. She's just, just powered down, or asleep, or something."

"Yes, yes I know!" The Doctor took a deep breath to steady himself. "Now, Amy, Rory, remember, this is real. But when we wake up in the other places, remember how real this feels."

"It is real. I know it's real," Amy agreed.

-Leadworth-

Amy woke up on a bench in Upper Leadworth. It wasn't the same bench she had fallen asleep on, but what did that matter, really?

"Okay, this is the real one," Amy declared, "Definitely this one. It's all solid."

The Doctor waved his hand about, announcing he was checking to see if it might be a computer simulation.

"If it is a computer simulation, they did put an awful lot of effort into detail," the Master noted.

After hearing Rory greeted as "doctor", the Doctor put pieces of this dream together to conclude, "Maybe this is your dream."

"Right, so dead time machines, and fighting in a Time War are also good dreams," Rory said sarcastically.

The Doctor ignored that point and asked, "What's that?" He jabbed his thumb towards the building behind him, where several old people stared menacingly out of the windows.

"Old people's home," said Amy.

"You said everyone here lives through their nineties," the Doctor told her. "There's something here that doesn't make sense. Let's go and poke it with a stick."

The Master rolled his eyes. "Did you really just summarize your entire life in two sentences?"

The Doctor just smiled at him, then ran off, followed by Rory.

"Oh, can we not do the running thing?" Amy complained, but not without good reason. The Master took his time and walked with her.

When inside the care home lounge, Rory was warmly greeted by several ancient-looking people sitting in mismatched chairs. The room smelled like the awful combination of hospital and old person, with just a tiny bit of overrun garden for some reason.

While the Doctor was being forced to try on a sweater for Mrs. Poggit, the Master asked, "What doesn't make sense about this, though? Is it some Earth thing you'd need to spend decades here to understand?"

The Doctor didn't reply to him, choosing instead to ask Mrs. Poggit, "You're incredibly old, aren't you?" The other residents of the care home stared at him in silence.

Before the Doctor could as any more probably socially unacceptable questions, birdsong filled the room.

-Time War-

"Okay, I hate this," Amy declared when greeted with the War-torn surroundings.

"So we're presented with sinister situations in each dream...," the Doctor thought out loud.

"Mrs. Poggit isn't sinister," Rory defended. "She's sweet."

"Hush, brain thinking," the Doctor said, dismissively waving Rory off. "So why weren't we shown anything wrong here?"

The three other beings crouching down by him stared at him like he had just forgotten that two plus two makes four.

"Just in case you missed it, dearest, this is a Time War," the Master said slowly. "They can't exactly make it much worse."

"You probably shouldn't have said that," the Doctor advised, drifting to sleep.

-TARDIS-

"Oh, I really really hate this, Doctor," Amy informed them. "Stop it, because this is definitely real. It's definitely real, this one. I keep saying that, don't I?"

The Master sat down on the floor, ignoring the chill of the cold metal, and tried to focus. He blocked out everything. Tried to reach out, feel if the TARDIS was still alive. He felt a spark of her consciousness, and opened his eyes.

"Everything's off. Sensors, core power. We're drifting."

"She's still alive, Doctor," the Master called up to where the Doctor was pacing on the steps. "Telepathic interface is still going. It's like she's asleep, a very very deep sleep."

"Well, at least there's that," the Doctor replied, and relaxed a tiny bit. He walked down the stairs. "The scanner's down, so we can't even see out. We could be anywhere." Frustrated, he added, "Someone, something is overriding my controls."

A small man dressed identical to the Doctor appeared on the stairs behind the Doctor. "Well, that took a while. Honestly, I'd heard such good things. Last of the Time Lords, the Oncoming Storm. 'Him in the bow tie'," the man mocked.

The Master shot up to his feet, and marched up the stairs. "You," he snarled. "I presume you're the bastard doing this to us? I hope you know I truly despise whenever someone forces a sound into my mind, and that I am not above tearing your guts out through your teeth."

"Oooh, scary," the man remarked, voice dripping with insincerity. "Is this what I get from Rassilon's favorite chew toy?" The man walked through the Master towards the Doctor.

"How did you get into my TARDIS? What are you?" the Doctor demanded.

"What shall we call me?" the man wondered, "Well, if you're the Time Lord, let's call me the Dream Lord."

The Master tried to act like he wasn't bothered by the Dream Lord's comment. He walked around the man, trying to observe what he could. Didn't smell like anything, didn't react when walked through, the disruption of waving a hand through him didn't look like any projection or hologram produced by technology the Master had ever seen. His speech patterns seemed organic enough, but that didn't mean much. His teleports, entirely for dramatic flair, didn't seem to give off any energy signature the Master could detect. The self proclaimed Dream Lord was most likely a psychic projection, but that irritated the Master, because he couldn't detect any hint of outside interference in his mind. The birdsong felt artificial, of course, but he couldn't pinpoint a source, any noticeable hint of where it may have originated.

"Where did you pick up this cheap cabaret act?" the Doctor asked.

"Me? You're on shaky ground."

"Am I?" the Doctor replied quickly.

The Doctor seemed incredibly tense. Well, it might be just because he was stuck between three realities, facing death in each, but that was usually his idea of fun. This so-called Dream Lord was apparently striking a nerve. So it's appearance, acceptance that bothers this one. Well, that bothers all incarnations of the Doctor. Never fitting in with Time Lords, because he was too human. Never entirely fitting in with the humans, because he was too alien. The Doctor was losing control of the situation. Now that bothered him, too. Brittle, angry. Dear, what had happened to this Doctor?

The Dream Lord turned to the Master. "You did."

He turned pale.

"I'm sorry?" the Doctor asked, trying to draw the Dream Lord's attention away.

He turned back to the Doctor with a patronizing smile. "Just something on his mind. Doctor, I'm surprised you haven't got a little purple space dog just to ram home what an intergalactic wag you are." The Dream Lord grinned at the Master. "Though, you might count as a dog. Do you still have that collar from the Naismiths?" he teased. "Ooh staying silent so you don't lose control, how sweet. If looks could kill..." He paused staring off into the distance. "Where was I?"

"You were—,” Rory began.

The Dream Lord cut him off. "I know where I was. So, here's your challenge. Three worlds. Here, in the time machine, there, in the village that time forgot, and also in the war that uses time itself as a weapon. Only one is real, and just to make it more interesting, you're going to face in each world a deadly danger, but only one of the deadly dangers is real. Tweet, tweet. Time to sleep."

Birdsong flooded the cold TARDIS, making it hard to stay awake.

"Oh, or are you waking up?" the Dream Lord taunted.

-Leadworth-

They all woke up on the floor of the care home. All the people previously sitting there had vanished.

"Oh, this is bad. This is very, very bad," the Dream Lord announced, walking into the room, making his presence in this world clear as well. He was holding up an x-ray up to the light streaming in through the windows. "Look at this x-ray. Your brain is completely see-through. But then, I've always been able to see through you, Doctor."

So, this was centered around the Doctor, then. Creepy fixation on Amy, but that sort of ties in to the Doctor. Toy with companion, toy with him. But the Master is more cautious about his name spreading than the Doctor, but the Dream Lord knew about him, too. Knew about Rassilon, and knew the Doctor well. Perhaps a Time Lord they had gone to school with? A fellow renegade that had lost physical form along the way?

The Dream Lord had stopped talking to Amy, and started staring at the Master, who wasn't really looking at anything. "Doctor, couldn't you just sit and watch him think all day? Oh, wait, you'd never have time for him."

The Master quickly looked at him, anxiously tapping his fingers on his leg in the pattern he despised. "I have good shielding. You shouldn't be able to get into my head like this."

"Oh, but all those years on Gallifrey, with the Time Lord's finest trying to get in? They must have left some nasty cracks. In fact, I think they even left..."

The Master felt a push, and he collapsed to the old carpet like a puppet with its strings cut.

After what felt like a second later to him, the world reappeared in his vision. The Doctor was leaning over him, almost looking worried. "You blacked out," the Doctor informed him. "Did he make you sleep? Were you back in the TARDIS?"

The Master tried to remember. "No, it's just it's just. Gone. Nothing. Was I out long?"

"No, and you didn't miss much either. Just the Dream Lord telling us if we die in the dream we wake up in reality."

"Like Inception?"

"You've watched Inception?"

"Eighteen months as Minister for Defense. Eighteen consecutive months on Earth. On Earth when relatively nothing interesting was happening. Axons? Interesting. Sea Devils? Interesting. Paperwork? Very much not interesting."

"Inception wasn't out yet."

"I'm a time traveler."

"Yeah, but—“

"Does this matter?" Amy asked, trying to keep them from squabbling over something unimportant.

"No," the Doctor admitted.

The Master sat up. "Wait, all of the old people are gone. They're all gone and you’ve just... stayed here?" he asked, confused.

"Yep. Come on, we have some really old people to find," the Doctor said, helping the Master to his feet.

They walked out of a door onto a playground with several schoolchildren scrambling all over it. The children seemed to be all individuals, but the Master couldn't see their faces, so he couldn't be entirely sure. Dream state was still a possibility.

"Why would they leave?" Rory asked.

"And what did you mean about Mrs. Poggit's nice old lady act?" Amy added.

"One of my tawdry quirks," the Doctor remarked. "Sniffing out things that aren't as they seem."

"It's charming, not entirely tawdry," the Master pointed out, trying to count the children running all over the place to try to discover if the details stay consistent. It would really help if they all stayed still, but... damn it, had he counted that girl twice, or was that an fault in detail? Why can’t children just stay still for two seconds?

"Is it really?"

"It means you're curious, clever, and less boring than the rest of the universe, so yes."

The Doctor smiled slightly, pleased at the complement, then launched into his usual monologue of observations. He began to get frustrated. "I'm sure there's a dream giveaway, a tell, but my mind isn't working because this village is so dull! I'm slowing down, like you two have."

Amy hunched over and clutched her stomach, shouting. She was going into labor.

Rory and the Doctor scrambled over each other in an attempt to understand what to do. The three men standing around Amy all looked absolutely terrified. After a few nerve-wracking moments, she straightened up and looked at them all, incredibly unimpressed.

"Okay, it's not coming."

"What?" the Doctor asked, bewildered by the sudden change.

She leaned in threateningly. "This is my life now and it just turned you white as a sheet, so don't call it dull ever again, ever. Okay?"

"Sorry," the Doctor apologized softly.

"Yeah," said Amy, walking off. Rory followed shortly after.

"She'd be excellent at being evil," the Master pointed out.

"No," insisted the Doctor.

"Listen, if she ever wants to learn anything that isn't as vain, arrogant, and sentimental as your version of good, she can make her own decision."

"Whatever she decides, there's nothing you or I could do about it."

"Clearly," the Master replied. After a pause, he added, "Though, on the subject of this village being dull, I could kiss you. That might make this less dull."

"Well that was oddly straightforward. Offering a kiss without trying to kill me first? I haven't seen that in a while."

"I'm having a bit of a rough day right now, so I'm not that good at being smooth, alright? Well, it's not a Terrible Day, so I can still clearly move and talk and stuff, but it's all taking a lot of energy."

"Well in that case..." the Doctor said, then quickly kissed the Master on the lips. "I suppose I should take the lead." He ran back over to Amy and Rory, beating Rory to sit on the swing next to Amy, before the Master could respond in any way.

When the Master caught up, Amy and he Doctor were discussing Rory's ponytail and what to do with it. He sat down on the roundabout nearby them, listening in.

"You hold him down, and I'll cut it off?" the Doctor suggested, making Amy laugh.

"This coming from the man in the bow tie," Rory retorted.

"Bow ties are cool," the Doctor defended. He looked up towards the field where the schoolchildren were now playing. Mrs. Poggit was standing there for some reason. "I don't know about you, but I wouldn't hire Mrs. Poggit as a babysitter. What's she doing? What does she want?" he wondered.

They heard birdsong again.

"Oh, no," Amy muttered, "Here we go."

-Time War-

Upon waking, Rory suggested, "We should start searching for your time capsules."

"Yes, probably," the Doctor said uneasily. "We'll split up. You two that way, the Master and I this way."

They weren't searching long when Amy called out in an urgent whisper, "Hey! Doctor! Blue box, you said?"

"Yes! Have you found it?"

"Yeah, we have, but you're not going to like where."

The Doctor's TARDIS was hidden in plain sight, her bright blue color easy to spot amidst the gray ruin of the planet, much like Amy's hair in that respect. Unfortunately, it was surrounded by Skaro Degradations.

Moving towards where Amy and Rory were, the Master felt the spine tingling nausea of what Time felt like when it was twisted till it snapped. The worst part about the Degradations wasn't their twisted shapes, their horrible ideas, their sick creativity, or even their newly made, terrifying weapons. No, it was their origins. They were entirely the Time Lords' fault. They were the result of manipulating the time lines of the Daleks, hoping to eradicate them, or at least make them weaker, more vulnerable.

As their group creeped closer to the Degradations, the Master muttered, "Honestly, if this is the dream, and we survive, I owe Captain Jack a drink, or twenty. Has he ever died from alcohol poisoning before...?”

-TARDIS-

They woke up. "It's really cold. Have you got any warm clothing?" Amy asked.

"What does it matter if we're cold?" snapped the Doctor. "We have to know what she is up to." He was still focused on the only seemingly sensible lead to the danger of Upper Leadworth. Sighing, the Doctor covered his face with his hands. "Sorry, sorry. There should be some stuff down there. Have a look."

After Amy and Rory went down to look for warmer clothing, the Doctor went underneath the console, and grabbed a whisk and some other odds and ends from a container.

When he was back next to the console, instead of underneath it, the Master asked him teasingly, "Do kisses still count if they're in dreams?"

"Regular dreams? No. Communal trances?" The Doctor looked quickly at the Master, then back down at the machine he was assembling. "Maybe. You seem to be in a better mood here," he observed.

"Bite me."

"Maybe if you're nice." A moment later, Rory and Amy returned with blankets, and the Doctor instructed, "Ah, Rory, wind. Amy, could you attach this to the monitor please?"

After Rory wound the handmade generator enough times, the main scanner on the wall flicked on, revealing a blueish-white star fairly nearby where the TARDIS was drifting.

White and blue stars are the hottest kind of stars, but this one was cold. How?

The Doctor impulsively flung open the doors. "That's why we're freezing. It's not a heating malfunction. We're drifting toward a cold sun. There's our deadly danger for this version of reality." He closed the doors again.

"So this must be a dream," Amy declared. "There's no such thing as a cold star. Stars burn."

"So's this one," the Doctor pointed out. "It's just burning cold."

"Is that possible?" Rory asked.

"Well, the pressure and heat of a star is what actually allows nuclear fusion reactions to take place," the Master began, "which releases huge amounts of energy in the form of gamma rays, which lose some of their energy by the time they reach the surface of the star, becoming visible light photons. Without that heat in the heart of that star, it shouldn't be considered a star at all. It shouldn't be giving off light. So... so... I don't know. It should be impossible."

"Couldn't the pressure of the star do that without the heat?" Amy asked, rubbing her arms to try to warm herself up.

"No, temperature and pressure are directly related," said the Master. "The pressure that should be at the heart of that star makes it give off incredible amounts of heat. Should make it give off heat."

"I don't get it," Rory sighed.

The Master groaned. "After this, we're going to have a science lesson."

"After drinks with whoever Captain Jack is," Amy suggested, waggling her eyebrows.

"No, no, not that freak of nature. I owe him a drink, sure, but I'm not going anywhere near him."

"We can argue about whether or not you'll apologize to him face to face later," the Doctor decided, "for now we have about fourteen minutes until we crash into that star. But that's not a problem."

"Because you'll fix it?" Rory asked, optimistic.

"Because we'll have frozen to death by then."

The Doctor and Rory began to argue over their choices of reality. The Dream Lord appeared behind them, and commented, "Oh, dear, Doctor. Dissent in the ranks. There was an old doctor from Gallifrey, who ended up throwing his life away. He let down his friends and..."

They began to hear birds chirping, and the Dream Lord pretended to be startled by the noise. "Oh, no we've run out of time. Don't spend too long there, or you'll, um, catch your death here."

-Leadworth-

Running up the steps, the Doctor asked, "Where have the children gone?"

"Don't know. Playtime's probably over," Rory guessed.

All that remained of the once-busy field were piles of ash. The Doctor ran up to them, scanning them with his sonic screwdriver. His face was pale, and he looked to the Master.

"Is that...?" the Master asked, not wanting to finish his horrible question.

The Doctor nodded slowly.

"Doctor, what are you doing?" Amy asked, "What are those piles of dust?"

Grimly, the Doctor replied, "Playtime's definitely over."

"Oh, my God."

"What happened to them?" Rory asked.

The Doctor ran over to see the old people walk up the street towards them. "I think they did."

"They're just old people," Amy said.

"No," the Doctor corrected, "they're very old people." He went down the steps to meet them. "Sorry, Rory, I don't think you're what's been keeping them alive."

The Dream Lord appeared off to the side, ridiculing the absurdity of being attacked by ancient humans. "This has got to be the dream, hasn't it? What do you think, Amy? Let's all jump under a bus and wake up in the TARDIS. You first," he instructed the Doctor.

"Leave her alone," the Doctor growled.

"Do that again," the Dream Lord requested, delighted. "I love it when he does that. Tall dark hero. 'Leave her alone.'"

"You leave him alone too, got it?" the Master sneered, trying to look intimidating despite feeling insignificant, weak and tiny.

"You're not quite the hero he is, now are you?" the Dream Lord said, pacing close to the Master, invading his personal space in a way that made the Master want to back up far away from him.

"I've never claimed to be," the Master justified, tilting his chin up defiantly. He tucked his hands behind his back to hide their trembling.

"Tell that to the humans at the end of the universe searching for Utopia," the Dream Lord challenged him, smirking knowingly.

The Master clenched his jaw and looked to the dirt, unable to meet the Dream Lord's eyes. He felt like he had been punched in the gut.

"Drop it. Drop all of it," the Doctor demanded. "I know who you are."

"Course you don't," the Dream Lord replied, turning his head to stare at the Doctor.

"Course I do. No idea how you could be here but there's only one person in the universe who hates me as much as you do."

"Who said I hate you?" the Dream Lord asked, then disappeared. The Doctor looked confused, maybe he was wrong.

Rory and the Doctor began to talk to the old people who had drawn worryingly near. It was going fairly well until they opened their mouths to reveal an eye looking out. That event does tend to put a damper on any situation. Mrs. Poggit breathed a blast of green gas at them, and Amy and Rory ran off shortly after.

The Doctor worked out the creatures' plan as quickly as they could tell it to him. He deemed it credible enough, but was still skeptical.

They killed a paper boy riding his bicycle with their poison gas, leaving only a pile of ash behind. "You need to leave this planet," the Doctor ordered.

When that request went as spectacularly as one might expect, the Doctor and the Master ran off towards the center of town. Birdsong began to play, but they did their best to stay awake.

The Doctor seemed to decide a butcher's shop would be the best place to hide, and ran in there, flipping over the 'open' sign to read 'closed' as if the eye monsters might read the sign and go away. They did not read the sign, and came in anyways. Perhaps they needed reading glasses as much as their hosts did.

The Dream Lord was already there, standing behind the counter. "Oh, I love a good butcher's don't you? We've got to use these places, or they'll shut down. Oh, but you're probably a vegetarian, aren't you, you big flop-haired wuss."

"Oh, pipe down, I'm busy," the Doctor complained.

"Maybe you need a little sleep," the Dream Lord suggested, and the two Time Lords slumped to the floor. "Oh, wait a moment, if you fall asleep here, several dozen angry pensioners will destroy you with their horrible eye thingies."

The Doctor scrambled away from the door, ignoring all of the snide comments the Dream Lord was making. The Doctor unlatched the store room, then locked himself and the Master inside, falling against the door, fast asleep as soon as he did so.

-TARDIS-

All four of them woke up on the TARDIS floor. "Ah, it's colder," Amy observed, shivering.

Curled up to try to stay warm, the Master asked the Doctor, "Why does the Dream Lord sound like you?"

"Sound like me? He sounds like you," the Doctor replied.

"You both mimic each other a lot," Rory pointed out helpfully.

"What?" they asked at the same time.

"Seriously, you're like a married couple," Amy informed them. "How long have you known each other anyways?"

"All my life," they said at the same time again.

"Stop that," ordered the Doctor, glaring at his friend.

The Master grumbled, and leaned forward onto the Doctor's shoulder.

Confused, he asked, "What are you doing?"

"Body heat," the Master responded without moving to look at the Doctor.

"Time Lords are colder than humans--" the Doctor tried to protest, looking at Amy, mouthing a silent 'help me.'

"Shut up," said the Master, his voice muffled by the Doctor’s shoulder.

"What temperature is it?" Amy asked, standing up.

Doctor stood up too. Master wrinkled his nose at the source of heat leaving him behind. "Outside? Brr. How many noughts have you got?," the Doctor answered. "Inside? I don't know, but I can't feel my feet and... other parts."

"I think all my parts are basically fine," Rory felt the need to add.

"Boys are so immature," the Master dryly commented to Amy, rolling his eyes.

With a raised eyebrow, she reminded him, "You're a boy."

He looked puzzled. "Oh, right. Yeah, I forgot. Forget. Do that sometimes.” He stared at his hands for a while, then muttered, “I have two hearts, Gallifrey has two suns, and binary gender is still bullshit.”

Amy picked up a few of the blankets she had found earlier. They had holes cut in the middle of them, and she told each of them to put one on.

Pulling one over his head, the Master stood up. "Have I ever mentioned how much I hate dying?" he asked conversationally.

"I've gotten that impression over the years, yes,” the Doctor noted sarcastically. “You’ve become adept at trying to avoid dying.”

“I do my best, my dear Doctor.”

“Note, I said trying to avoid dying. You’re rather awful at staying alive,” the Doctor commented offhandedly.

“I know,” the Master grumbled sulkily. “Try not to get me killed this time though, yeah?”

“When have I ever gotten you killed?” the Doctor asked, not meeting his eyes.

“Several times, my dear. Would you like the list?”

“There’s a list?”

“Clearly.”

“Why must you always act like this?”

The Master shrugged. "I'm dying, give me a break.”

The Doctor gave him a Look. "You've been using that excuse for hundreds of years."

"And it's been true hundreds more!" the Master insisted.

"We're not going to die,” Rory cut in.

"No, we’re not,” the Doctor checked his watch, “but our time’s running out. If we fall asleep here we're in trouble.” The Doctor began to pace. “If we could divide up, then we'd have an active presence in each world, but the Dream Lord is switching us between the worlds. Why, why? What's the logic?" the Doctor asked anxiously.

The Master tilted his head thoughtfully, analyzing the situation like any excellent arch-nemesis would. He only thought about what he might do if he were the villain in this situation, evaluating all their strengths and weaknesses. Honestly, how did any do-gooder survive without this perspective on life? The Master was always watching their weaknesses, and already knew how he would personally set up this whole scenario.

He began to explain the more villainous point of view.

"You know you're helpless in one world, so you're constantly scared in the other. If you split up, you trust the others to watch your back, so you're less scared of what’s happening in the world in which you’re asleep. Also, when split up, your brain makes a conscious decision of 'this one is real, because I'm awake, and they're asleep.' He wants to keep us scared, and guessing.

“Though, if we split up we'd be scared, insecure, and alone. Split up, we're less likely to die, but due to horrible instinctual reflex... We're more scared alone.”

The Dream Lord appeared. "Oh, he's clever and evil. I like him, Doctor. Can I keep him? Since you don't seem to want him."

"Hey! I want him,” the Doctor said, the protest sounding weak and strange even to his own ears.

"Really? I'm not too convinced. Anyways, good idea on splitting up, veggie. Let’s do that so I can have a lovely little chat with your pets. Maybe I’ll keep them, and you can spend eternity alone, just like you deserve.”

“Hey!” the Master snarled at the Dream Lord, suddenly protective. “He doesn’t deserve to be alone. He should never be alone.”

“But what about all the times he’s left you?” the Dream Lord asked the Master teasingly. “And you?” he asked Amy.

“He came back though,” Amy insisted, sounding a bit unsure of her words though. She turned to the Master. “He came back for you too, right?”

Neither the Doctor nor the Master met her questioning gaze. One, of shame, the other, of hurt. “Eventually... yes,” the Master admitted. “The long way round.”

The Doctor looked surprised at this, and then upset because he was surprised. He had never sought out the Master... had he? He hadn’t gone looking for the Master, what, ever? The Doctor had actually been avoiding him for the most part of the time ever since the first time he left Gallifrey. Does he really leave people behind that often?

The answer is yes, yes he does. And yes, it still hurts each time it happens.

“Oh, Doctor. Breaker of hearts, destroyer of worlds. Are you proud of your legacy? Are you proud of what you’ve become? Tell me, when was the last time you kept a promise?” the Dream Lord taunted as all but Amy began to hear the birdsong.

-Time War-

The Master woke up on the unnamed war-torn hellscape, as he was so eloquently calling the planet they were currently on. He looked around quickly at all the other non-Dalek entities around him. All three, Amy, Rory, Doctor, were fast asleep. Shit.

"Oh, Pythia and her moons," the Master murmured, hands shaking. "Please don't tell me I'm the only one awake here." Looking around at his sleeping... friends aka partners in crime aka people he's stuck with trying to keep alive, he added wearily, "Damnit."

Watching the Degradations swarm around the TARDISes, he was reminded horribly of ants scrambling about. Well, if ants could be murderous killing machines with no mercy or emotion other than blinding hatred. Those would be some terrifying ants.

He was stuck maintaining this position until the others woke up, because there was no way he could lug their bodies to the TARDIS and not get all of them killed.

He saw the Dream Lord pop up in the corner of his eye. "Hello Daleks!" he shouted. When neither the Master nor the Daleks reacted, he frowned, and asked, "Aw, come on, not even a jump?"

"You control dreams. You're just in our heads,” the Master said steadily, quietly. “You don't directly interact with your surroundings, even in dreams. You're a projection. They can't hear or see you."

The Dream Lord contrarily said, "This might be a dream, so I really could bring them over here.”

"I don't think you will,” the Master replied.

"Oh? Why not?"

"Dunno. That would be giving the game away, telling me it’s a dream. You might just be here to talk. Seem to do a lot of that anyways. Though, you rely on an audience, so I don't know why you're here when there's only me."

"You're alone and scared,” the Dream Lord said. The Master couldn’t quite read his tone of voice. It almost sounded pitying? Why?

The Master looked up at the Dream Lord, unimpressed. "Usually. Why the hell does that matter?”

The Dream Lord didn’t respond, only turned and walked away from him, before stopping melodramatically.

"He'll never forgive you, you know.” The Dream Lord’s voice was frigid, and a tiny bit petulant.

Keeping his voice carefully even, Master asked, “Excuse me?”

“He told you that on the Valiant because he wants to be forgiven too.” The Dream Lord spat, “He just wants to be rid of you.”

"I didn't want to hear it anyways,” the Master replied coolly.

"He's going to leave you behind again,” the Dream Lord declared bitterly.

The Master’s hands were shaking. He stubbornly ignored this. "You think I don't know that?"

"You've hurt him so badly he doesn't love you anymore. He loves his companions, his pet humans, more than he ever loved you. He wants you dead. He wants you to die and stay dead more than anything else."

"I know, alright?"

"You've hurt him. It's your fault. Why do you stay around him? He doesn't love you. He doesn't want you around. All you do is burn what he cares about."

"Shut up,” the Master bit out.

The Dream Lord got down and leaned in close to the Master.

"Why don't you just do the universe a favor and kill yourself once and for all?"

"Shut up,” the Master repeated.

The Dream Lord stood up again and shrugged nonchalantly, but the malice remained in his eyes.

"It's not like you haven't tried before,” he said easily, lightly.

"Shut up,” the Master said again, his hands clenched into fists. That was none of this Dream Lord’s business. That wasn’t anyone’s business but his own.

"You're weak, broken, diseased,” th Dream Lord continued, the last insult ringing too clearly of Rassilon.

The Master had had enough. “I fucking know, okay?!” he hissed, having just barely enough presence of mind to not shout and alert the Daleks to their position. “I know! Shut up!”

“Just a pleasant reminder,” the Dream Lord said with an empty, harsh grin.

“Go fuck yourself,” the Master snarled, ever the gentleman.

“Oh! How rude. I’ll be off, then. Have fun on your own.”

Then he disappeared, leaving the Master to deal with his words. He reached into his pocket to try to find the flower-in-the-stone for some form of stability. It wasn’t there. He dug his nails into his forearms instead, a horrible habit that he had never fully gotten rid of. It didn’t help much.

After a few minutes of relative silence, Rory woke up with a gasp. "What— Where—?!"

"Shh. You just woke up, that's all."

"Is Amy alright?" Rory asked, having calmed down a bit. "I was with her, but I can't remember what happened."

"Yeah, she's alright, just asleep," the Master informed him, pointing to where she lay.

They sat in silence for a while.

Rory broke it by asking, "Do you have any idea how to get up there?"

"Without significant risk of getting us killed? No, not really. I'm working on a plan though." If the Master had learned anything from the Doctor, it was that humans were calmer whenever they believed there was a plan.

They sat and waited for a bit longer. The Master had no idea what to do, and Rory didn’t want to do anything until Amy and the Doctor were awake.

Then they woke up.

"Where the hell have you all been?” the Master asked, more complaining than anything else.

"Dream Lord is quite the creepy bastard," Amy informed them.

"Leadworth,” the Doctor answered. “We crashed a camper van. Killed you, too. Sorry to take your choice in that away, but at that point it was either that or death by the eyeball things."

"So this is the reality?” Rory asked.

"Maybe,” the Doctor replied.

"Whatever reality is actually real, we still need to get to your TARDISes,” Amy said, looking out at the Degredations.

"There's too many of them to just go out and shoot,” the Master said, having done a mental count of the Daleks. The confirmed total was ‘oh, fucking hell.’ “We'd be killed before we could get anywhere near your TARDIS.”

The Doctor, having done the exact same count, suggested, "Well, one of us could draw their fire as a distraction. Then the rest could either just run for it, or take out the Daleks from behind.”

"Fair enough,” Amy said.

"Here, Amy, you'll need this," the Doctor said, handing a TARDIS key over to her. "I'll move down further away from the TARDIS, while you move closer. Then I'll probably do something incredibly clever as a distraction, and you can run for it."

"Got it,” she said.

They steadily sneaked up towards the time ships, Amy taking the lead, because she had the key, Rory following behind her, and the Master following behind them.

The Master looked down to where he knew the Doctor to be hiding. He hoped he would be less of an idiot as usual, and avoid getting himself hurt. If he regenerated it would be even more difficult to get off this planet alive, but not entirely impossible.

The Doctor sprinted out into plain sight of the Degradations. "Hey! Daleks! Over here!" Well, that delusion of him not being an idiot was nice while it lasted.

One of the Degradations, the one with a cannon the Master had never seen before mounted in its center, turned away from the TARDISes and began steadily moving towards the Doctor. "Pre-da-tor," it growled.

Another Degradation, one that looked like an orb situated on top of several mechanical spider legs spun around, its legs clicking like high heels on a polished marble floor. In a high pitched, sickly, lilting tone it repeated, "Predator?"

The other Degradations turned towards the Doctor, repeating "Predator" over and over again, in overlapping tones and volumes. It was nauseatingly overwhelming... or perhaps overwhelmingly nauseating? After a second more of their noise, the Master decided it was both nauseatingly overwhelming, and overwhelmingly nauseating.

"Well this worked better than I might have liked," the Doctor said, hesitantly taking a step back.

While the group of horrors were incredibly invested in the Doctor's every move, the rest of them inched closer to the TARDISes, quickly running out of cover. There was nearly only be a dead sprint left waiting between them and the blue box.

“Eradicate!” the one with the cannon said, whirring closer to the Doctor.

It fired, the resulting red light seeming to engulf the Doctor. The Doctor opened his mouth to say something— “Run”, maybe?— and the light poured into his mouth, choking him. The scene seemed achingly familiar, but the Master could not place it. The light eroded the Doctor, everything he was or ever could be, and he vanished as if he was never there.

The Master sat back on his heels, staring at the empty space the Doctor used to occupy. "This one can't be real,” he said to himself. “It can't be real. He's dead. They erased him from time." Immediately, the Master stood up, firing at the closest eyestalk he saw. "Oi, Daleks!”

"What are you doing?!" Amy shouted at him, halfway between the closest cover and the TARDIS doors.

The Daleks fired at them. The Master saw the world as if it were a negative image, then he woke up in the TARDIS.

-TARDIS-

The entire console had frozen over. They were covered in crystals as if someone had left them all in a borax solution overnight.

“Amy, Master, together you chose this world. Well done. You got it right. And with only seconds left. Fair’s fair. Let’s warm you up.” The Dream Lord flicked a few switches on the console, and the lights whooshed on, along with the heating. The ice frosting over everything made it look like someone had gone around painting the room white except for the colored lights shining through in places. “I hope you’ve enjoyed your little fictions. It all came out of your imaginations, so I’ll leave you to ponder on that. I have been defeated. I shall withdraw. Farewell.” The Dream Lord then disappeared.

Amy and Rory turned to each other, and the Master followed the Doctor as he went around pulling levers on the TARDIS console.

“What are you...?” the Master began to ask, not bothering to finish the question.

“If you were to set something like this up, would you actually have the truth be one of the three choices?” the Doctor asked, not answering his question, or stopping what he was doing.

“Well, unless I had promised one of the three would be true, no,” the Master answered truthfully, wondering where this was going.

The Doctor looked at him pointedly, “Exactly, neither would I.”

“What? Oh! So he was...?” the Master asked again, once more not bothering to finish his question. The Doctor knew what he was talking about anyways.

“Maybe. I think so.” The Doctor suddenly looked nervous. “Do you trust me?”

“Like I said before, not as far as I could throw you, but I will regardless.” The Master took the Doctor’s hand, internally berating himself for showing any affection Ever until the Doctor smiled at him. Then affection was okay, at least for a little while.

“What are we doing now?” Amy asked, walking over to them.

“Me, I’m going to blow up the TARDIS,” the Doctor replied easily.

“What?” Rory asked indignantly, with all the force and affronted-ness of someone asking ‘Excuse me, what the fuck?’

“Notice how helpful the Dream Lord was?” the Doctor said in lieu of an actual explanation. “Okay, there was misinformation, red herrings, malice, and I could have done without the limerick. But he was always very keen to make us choose between dream and reality.” He flipped a switch, and the TARDIS lights turned red, the room beginning to shake.

“What are you doing?” Amy asked, her panic building.

“Doctor, the Dream Lord conceded,” Rory insisted as if this might deter the Doctor from his task. “This isn’t a dream.”

“Take it from a former or current villain or arch-nemesis, it will never be that simple,” the Master explained, “Offer left or right, make sure it’s neither. Well, unless you’re playing fair, which he wasn’t. Playing fair’s no fun at all.”

“Stop him,” Amy said, reaching for the Doctor to try to stop him from blowing them up, but the Master got in her way.

“I mean, star burning cold?” the Doctor added, “Do me a favor. The Dream Lord has no power over the real world. He was offering us a choice between two dreams.”

Amy asked frantically, “How do you know that?”

“Because I know who he is,” the Doctor replied rather dramatically, turning a final switch.

Then the TARDIS exploded.

A bit later, back in the realm of reality at last, Amy and Rory walked into the TARDIS console room. They began asking the Doctor questions about what had happened. The Master didn’t particularly care about that until they asked who the Dream Lord was.

“Sorry, wasn't it obvious? The Dream Lord was me,” the Doctor said.

“Well,” the Master cut in, “and me, too.”

“Psychic pollen. It's a mind parasite,” the Doctor explained, “It feeds on everything dark in you, gives it a voice, turns it against you. I'm nine hundred and seven. He’s... Oh, I don’t know, but it had a lot to go on for the both of us.”

“But why didn’t it feed on us too?” Amy asked, referring to Rory and herself.

“The darkness in you pair, it would’ve starved to death in an instant,” the Doctor said proudly. “I choose my friends with great care in that respect.”

“‘Cept me. I’m sort of terrible,” the Master added, and then instantly regretted saying that.

“You were good, too, once,” the Doctor said solemnly, staring at him with— oh, no was that emotion? Ew.

The Master wrinkled up his nose. “Don’t be disgusting.”

“But the things he said about you both,” Amy said. “You don’t think any of thats true?”

The Doctor and the Master shared equally avoidant looks of ‘I really don’t want to talk about this right now.’

The Doctor spoke up first. “Amy, right now a question is about to occur to Rory. And seeing as the answer is about to change his life, I think you should give him your full attention.”

As Amy and Rory discussed Amy’s unwillingness to live without Rory, a similar question occurred to the Doctor.

“What happened in the War?”

“Several things, my dear,” the Master said dryly, “but many of them are several decades away in my mind. You’ll have to be a bit more specific.”

“In the dream, you impossibility.”

“I like that, ‘impossibility’.” At the Doctor’s glare, he sighed and said, “You were erased from time.”

“And then?”

“And then I did something very stupid that got us all killed.”

“Did you mean to get yourself killed?”

“Yes, I think so. It happened quickly, to be honest.”

“Why would you do that? Did you know they were dreams?”

“No, but who wants to live in a Time War anyways? I didn’t then, still don’t now. Plus... I didn’t want to live in a world where you aren’t in it. ‘A cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about’ and all that.” At the Doctor’s silence and probably-genuine emotion, he rolled his eyes like a jerk. “What, want to kiss like them? Get over it. I experienced a tiny bit of emotion, it won’t happen again.”

“What if I did want to kiss?”

The Master gave him a speculative glare. He quickly kissed the Doctor on the cheek. “Don’t do that ever again. The universe would fall apart if it ever had five minutes without you.”

“I promise I won’t get myself erased from the universe, then,” the Doctor promised, crossing his fingers behind his back just in case.

The Master raised an eyebrow at him, not believing that promise one bit. “You always break your promises, my dear Doctor. Here, I’ll do one better. I will do anything I can to make sure you don’t get erased from time. How’s that?”

“You always do keep your promises, even if I don’t,” the Doctor said strangely— was that regret? Affection?

“Yes,” he Master replied, “I do. Also, we seriously need to talk about what our combined subconscious is like. Not right now, but soon.”

“Yeah.” The Doctor cleared his throat. “So, well then, where now? Or should he and I just... leave you two alone for a bit?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere’s good for me. I’m happy anywhere. It’s up to Amy this time. Amy’s choice.”

“Well, I want to go see whoever this Captain Jack is,” Amy said, grinning.

At this, the Master groaned loudly, and walked out of the console room. “Have fun with that, then. Don’t get me involved if you don’t want this night to end in a murder— his or mine.”

The Doctor watched him leave with a troubled expression. A moment later however, his disposition brightened up instantly, and he began to prepare to take off, saying to Amy and Rory, “Twenty-first century Earth should be just about right!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I kinda defeated the purpose of Amy's Choice being Amy choosing between Rory and the Doctor, but in this AU it's less of a love triangle and more of a double date tour of the universe. ...If the Doctor and the Master get their shit together, and I write romance for once instead of whatever the hell this classifies as. Whoops


End file.
